Getting to Live... But not Living

During my childhood days, i was an extremely carefree guy. Although I used to stand first in the class, but frankly speaking i never tried that hard. All through the day and the evening i used to play. i used to study for the sake of the joy of learning... i didn't have much ambition. i used to live the life to its fullest potential.. but when i went to do my engineering, the carrot of the social awards came to play in my life. it was the award that if i do well in the BE i will lead a better life... if i do well in the GRE and TOEFL, i will be able to avail better education in USA which will give me more carrots.... and after i passed, BE i started "Getting to Live... But not living..."

these days i have understood that an engineering degree comes in a package.. with it comes the ambition of a "better life" (in the materialistic sense), a better life partner,a big house, a bigger car, more power in the society...although none of these contribute anything to a person's quality of life, but most of the time a person gets entangled in achieving all of these things till one day the bathroom mirror shows few grey hairs...

the Hindu philosophy says these things very clearly... it says there are two kinds of ambition... the first is for more money, more power, more promotions in the job, a bigger car, a big house.. it makes a man listless...

and the second kind of ambition is for knowledge, truth and wisdom... it makes a man happy...

these days when i read some books, i read it just for the joy of learning without the ambition that it may lead to a fatter pay package... this attitude is giving me enough pleasure to spend my days blissfully...

i have started "Living the life".. and left the "Getting to live ... but not living" syndrome far behind...

Ganapati temple at my locality

There is a beautiful huge ganapati temple at the place where i stay. i visit that temple almost regularly. it has become an habit for me. this is the way we the Indians grow up. so somebody can ask "OK... whats the big deal...."

its all about faith in religion... had this temple been a kali temple and not a ganapati temple, i can bet that people would still flock to it.

i think most of us grow up in an environment which instills this faith inside us from childhood. in my childhood, i have seen my Mom going to Kali temple every tuesday and saturday, i have seen her watering the Peeple tree. My dad used to offer incense sticks to the God at his small shop. After my marriage i have seen my mother-in-law going to Hanuman temple on tuesday, and i have seen my father-in-law visiting temple everyday. i have seen my wife offering puja to her own set of God and Goddesses everyday at one corner of my small apartment. And i regularly water the small Tulsi plant at my home.

There is an adage in Bengali which goes like this "Biswase milaye bostu.. Torke bohudur.... "

What it essentially means is that if we believe in something, it becomes easier to achieve.. And if we disbelieve, it becomes unattainable.

in distress, my wife earnestly calls Sankatmochan as if she is talking to Him. in distress, i earnestly chant the Gayatri mantra. Now a logical mind may term it as a superstition. But it has nothing to do with superstition, its just plain faith that, in distress we have a friend to fall upon.

This is our Indian philosophy. i think along with other goods and services, we must export this to the outside world. this is the best thing we can actually export...

Roadside Mirchi Shops

It was a cloudy afternoon. Rain was in the air. As i was walking empty stomach towards my home, an aroma tingled my nostrils. Turning back, i saw a heaps of deep fried savories. Pakoda as you would call it in India....Bread pakodas, Aloo bondaas, Gram cutlets and my favorite Mirchis. Looking beyond my eyes popped up. He was frying Jillibis. i had no option but to retrace my steps and stand in front of the shop. I had a wonderful lunch of hot Jillibis and even hotter Mirchis.

I was first exposed to the "Mirchi"s almost a decade back in Hyderabad. Mirchi is made of big Green Chillies coated with Bason and deep fried.

There is definitely something special about these roadside pakoda shops and the tea stalls in India. The energy level with which these shops are bestowed with is something special. The agility and the multi functioning activities that the shop owner shows while handling different customers, frying the mirchis, serving tea and managing the cash all by himself is something awesome. The business in these shops are run by the words of mouth. There is no calculator, no bill receipts, no computers.

Almost all of these shops in rural India are similar in looks. It will have one big bowl in which few fried Mirchis will be piled in open air. There will be a big Kaday with hot oil on an open Burner (rather a Chulla) on one side of the shop. Beside that, the shop owner will sit with one hand busy frying Mirchi and the other managing Tea and Cash. And there will be the customers standing in front of the shop busy in chit chatting and enjoying hot Mirchis and tea. With all probabilities, the tea will be served in small clay cups. However, in modern days cups made of glasses and plastics have made an inroad. And of course there is different dialects depending on the location. For example, in Mumbai, it may be "Ek cutting chai" and in Delhi it may be "Ek batta Do chai". In West Bengal it may be "Ek Half tea"....

Although the glamor of these shops are threatened by sophisticated food joints and the supernatural advertisements of the soft drinks of modern days, but people in India still flock to them. People may complain about these shops being unhygienic and a poor quality oil being used..... But who can resist the delicious spicy Mirchis, sweet jillibies and a cup of tea there?

Negotiation skill

It is said worldwide that we the Indians are good at negotiation skills. Its because we have to negotiate everywhere, everyday. We negotiate while traveling by auto rickshaw, we negotiate while buying groceries, we negotiate at the fish market, we negotiate with the hawkers on the footpath. We grow up seeing our parents and neighbors negotiating in their everyday lives. The better we negotiate the smarter we are called. But this tendency to negotiate has created an air of disbelief in almost all of us. We cannot believe the shop owner, we cannot believe the auto rickshaw driver, we cannot believe the hawkers. While staying in Japan, i noticed that we did not have to disbelieve people. Generally they are honest and we can believe them without any loss. Does it mean that this negotiation skill have made us smarter or simply cheaters?

In Gita, it is said that a person by nature is full of faith. It is said that whatever we do without faith is fruitless because it is an untruth (Asatya). A child believes everything till his/her thought processing is polluted by external forces. Does it mean that we are living our daily lives in untruth while negotiating in every step?

I have a dream... the importance of dreaming...

Nazriya - a poem written and recited by my wife Reema

It's all a matter of Nazriya - how we look at certain things - the perspective.

There is a fundamental mistake in the thought processing of our leaders. They think people in distress look forward to availing of subsidies. However, I think it's not the subsidies they look for, they look for a leader who will make them capable of dreaming - dreaming of a new India, dreaming of a new era, dreaming of raising their families with dignity, dreaming of making a Home out of their Huts. There is fundamentally nothing wrong with being poor, however, it's an unpardonable sin to stop dreaming. Even during the British Raj, there was poverty, illiteracy, poor health system. But one thing had united all the people of India. It was the dream of a free India. People got united to follow that dream. We had leaders who helped us see that dream. It was the dream of "Jonathon Livingstone Seagull" which made him immortal. It was the dream of "Iqbal" which made him wear the blue jersey. 

So it's all about a dream that will make our country a better nation. People don't need subsidies, they want to dream. A dream of a better Bharat, a dream of a free nation, a dream of a dignified life. 

It would be nice to see a leader starting his speech with 

"I have a dream"....

My childhood days

Today morning as i was gazing at the tree full of yellow leaves getting ready to embrace the winter in USA, some memories of my childhood days took me to that small world where i spent almost sixteen years of my life. i was feeling terribly nostalgic. The memories of my school days, the memories of Mahalaya's morning, the memories of days of Durga Puja, the memories of the "Choto" Vs. "Boro" football match on the morning of 15th August, the memories of the march past of the school children at Jail Ground on the occasion of 26th January, the memories of Raas Mela, the memories of the fair at the Science Museum, the memories of our adda on the bank of Saheb Bandh, the memories of basking in the sun on the rooftop during winter, the memories of the Chayachobir asor in the big HMV radio in the afternoon and lots more flooded my calm soul. We were a big joint family with almost ten members. Life was so simple with almost no modern days electronic gadgets but still it was so full. Still i remember my role as the shopkeeper at my grand parent's small shop.

Education - basic or higher

I am really not sure how i should present this topic - where we should stress more - basic primary education or higher education. As government after government spend huge sum for primary education (although i don't know whether it really goes to the actual needy), let me tell you the bleak picture of our higher education. As i have come from a very backward district of West Bengal, i can at least try to give you the real picture.

i studied till 10th standard in a school which can boast of anything but good quality students. we had a strength of about 100 students at Xth standard appearing for the board examination. Out of those 100 students, just three got first class. And out of those three probably i am the only one who could break the wall of the small town to come into a life to compete with the global workforce. Now you may wonder what has happened to those unlucky 97 students who could not make it big. i can tell you very few of them have become financially independent in lives. please don't take it otherwise. i am trying to give you a statistics not to boast about myself, but the real picture of education in small towns.

so my point is all of the 100 students had got the basic education. most of them came from well-to-do families. then why is this failure in building a career out of their good basic education? hence providing basic education is not the solution, but to provide an education so that a student can earn a livelihood out of that education is the challenge.

i think we are stressing too much on just the enrollment of students at the primary schools. but it is important at the same time to see whether those students are able to earn a livelihood out of that education. making a student self sufficient so that he can earn a livelihood with his basic education should have been our motto instead of just getting the students enrolled at the primary schools. i can bet that in small towns and villages, even with education up to 10th standard in so called local schools, people end up in doing menial works.

now as we stress too much on primary education, should not we start thinking that people with good higher education can build a society where the students having basic education can be absorbed? there should be a balance between the stress given to primary education and higher education. its a different matter, although, that even with good higher education, people remain unemployable.