Reliving Mumbai!

If you would have read my previous posts you will be left wondering about this one... (perhaps you need to be a part of the elite junta that reads my posts as very few really do)as all my previous attempts were with the issue side of Life...so here I go on a trail to catch the other side....a visit to Mumbai.
Well I haven't read Suketu Mehta's "Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found” but one thing is for sure I lost myself when I found Bombay! A city which is a utter chaos in a local train turns into a beauty on the streets of Marine Drive. A place where you could easily sense every person breathing his dream!” Never say die!” you take this to Mumbaikars for they epitomize the true meaning of this cliché. Each of them trying to find a place for himself, whether be it in a local train, whether be at the place he works or be it any damn inch of land the city inhibits....here absolutely everyone is trying to fit in the scheme of things, trying to take the system forward....very unlike us (as we keep on groaning even the most dutiful sun in the early morning for the sunshine it brings darts through the window panes and onto our eyes)Bombay has got about itself an aura which tends to get the best out of each one of its inhabitats.The local trains are more of a bio data of the ones traveling thru it....for if one is a stock broker he's got all the financial dailies that he could ever buy(although I’m not very sure how it helps them with their stock picking)...for if one is a employee you will find him dozing off provided he's found a place to sit but its also true that I have seen standing souls sleeping et al...


Each Mumbaikar is trying to squeeze out the maximum he/she can get out of each day...I just wonder whether ppl there have different clocks as they seem to living for more than the 24 hour cycle. One can spend a day with a measly Rs.5/- note while some other may find it difficult to do it even coughing up a green Rs.500/- note. A family from Dharavi enjoys all the festivals with almost the same enthusiasm and joy as does a Mannat residing SRK.Its all very subjective here. There’s no thumb rule here, everthing seems to outlive itself even before it started living. Almost every Mumbaikar tries to be ahead of the curve, for even an iota of a chance lost can be as bad as a fortune ruined. Space constraints galore but then at the same time it has the entire place on this Earth to accommodate every other person who is aspiring to make it big in there! No one spares even a glance leave alone a stare, even if you are being intimate on the streets itself .Absolutely no fuss for being asked time and again to fight it out in the glaring heat that the city wears for almost as long as one lives there. The only reason I find for this is the living hope in the hearts of the millions staying here, the hope to see himself/herself joining the bandwagon of the neo rich that the city breeds at the rate of knots almost every day. And one of the main factors contributing to this hope is the local train, for that is the place which acts as a great leveller, the place where a stock broker earning crores has no issues sitting besides even a cart puller and it is this transition from the echelons to the bottom of the pyramid that lights a hope in the
hearts of the beleaguered worker. Well its really hard for me to truly summarize the aura of Mumbai for it too big to fit into a few hundred words that I’m trying to scribble here. Mumbai is no less than a father figure with arms wide open to embrace all its children and which treats all of them equal and under one roof. I wish I could be Mumbai but if wishes were horses, beggars would ride them!My final attempt of putting Mumbai in words goes as “Some things in life are hard to replace but luckily some don’t need to be replaced”

Do we really have a choice?

A P J Abdul Kalam is drawing close to complete his first term as the President of India. Even before he realizes this fact there have been a lot of rumors doing the rounds so as to who should be the successor once this charismatic personality dethrones the post. Very few in the Govt. circles are envisaging the case for him being offered to continue for yet another term.Anyways who(read politick junta) would like a President ,who also dons the cap of being a rocket scientist and specially so when a few of the ruling ministers would find it difficult to even spell the word “scientist”correctly!It ha long been argued that the President is elected not by the masses but the classes(political).But what we fail to realize is that the President is the true representative of the people ,as we tend to look up to the President to address us during situations we deem as important to national causes. The glaring example of one such situation being the hanging of Mohd. Afzal where we expected the President to address the issue. Although there have been similar such issues in the past too but the President being only a constitutional post failed to make any impression until this prestigious post has been redefined by our erstwhile Mr. A P J Abdul Kalam.
Even Kalam’s reaction of “Fantastic” when asked for his response to the idea of Infosys’s founder as president speaks volumes regarding his persona. How many of the political leaders would have reacted in a similar way and especially so when they knew that they were one of the persons in contention for the post that is being talked about. As T N Seshan did the overhaul of the overshadowed EC and J M Lyngdoh carried the tradition further we can’t find a better person than the Infosys chief to replace the aura of the outgoing president. Also the person makes a good case for himself as he has been at the helm of the company affairs ever since he founded it. He’s managed people, resources, finances and what ever that comes to mind when we think about organizations and he’s done all this exceedingly well. This itself brushes aside the claim that a professional would find it difficult to deal with bureaucracy prevalent in the political system as this would be a new challenge for the poster boy of Indian IT to groom the existing people according to his own liking. And he is never been learnt to make any compromises and so do we hope although this spells trouble for the stubborn leaders who find it difficult to change but for money! And here is, N R Narayan Murthy who is the sole soul on the IT bandwagon industry pressing ahead with the need for these (IT) behemoths to pay taxes in India.
The phenomenal growth enjoyed by Infosys may not be replicated by him but he is sure to do a job much better than most of the other options that are being talked about. I would like to even go a step further and propose that we grant Mr.Murthy a full two terms from the onset so that the vision he aspires about India sees the light of the day, so that his long term goals actually walk from paper to the implementation side. The power corridors have long been tainted by the cobwebs of bureaucracy and struggle for power. We want Mr.Murthy to take on the onus and sweep away these discrepancies so that we have a clean system to look forward to. We want you, Mr.Murthy to speak for us for we are ready to lend our voices to you as long as you need them!

Provoked--Who's the culprit?

Success breeds success---there’s nothing like it, but what success surely does is it lits a hope that has the power to lighten the dark corridors of ignorance and defeat behind the closed doors where very few have dared to venture in. Here goes a story of a beleaguered wife,Kiranjit Singh Ahluwalia who has been suffering at the hands of her husband for 10 long years.She doesn’t command any respect whatsoever from her other half whereas he demands all the respect from her. Chasing white women, having lengthy drinking sessions and the last thing that can ever be done viz, raping your own wife in the midst of the house corridors are a few traits of her husband’s personality. She’s always on the mercy of her husband’s few dollars that he lends her (I use the word “lend” here to emphasize the kind of relationship the couple had) Finally her patience broke loose and she did what is never expected of an Indian wife, sets her alive husband on fire, rather accidently.
After going through the above stated condition of the woman, this eventuality would be justified for many of us, reading this. But Kiranjit Singh Ahluwalia is no name we need to be proud of and she certainly is not a name that can be done away with. As I say this, don’t get me wrong cos there are a few instances in the movie where she finds herself in a better position than most others (of the same kind) would have found themselves in. The point I’m trying to make here is, why depend on luck or circumstances when you can do yourself much good by knowing about your rights beforehand? Kiranjit Singh Ahluwalia, being of Indian origin she had the peer pressure to get herself married off and have a family ASAP. Point taken, we do have a social structure where the girls are not supposed to learn more, as she is completely seen as a house maker and not a bread earner. But what the parents have failed to realize all this while the need to inculcate the importance of knowing a women’s state of well being in a society. A wife is as important as a husband in a relationship, a girl is as important as a boy and a home maker is as important as a bread earner, if not more. The system fails to make us realize the fact that we need to respect women at par with any other man. A girl child is hardly allowed to pursue her dream career, on the contrary she is made a scapegoat for all the anger venting that does happen.
Overhualing of the system overnight can only bring our nightmares come true but a start needs to be made to bring things in order. I propose here a change that can be a lot of relief to a girl….do away with changing the surname of a girl when she gets married. This ensures that she has not undergone any identity change but a role change. This way she identifies herself as the same girl she always has been throughout her life. She doesn’t have to look up to her husband to provide a sense of security that he’s supposedly deemed to provide, for she has always been supporting herself in her pre marital life. It is for the women in the house to make their girl child understand her rights, so that not many incidents like the one mentioned above takes place. As Kiranjit Singh Ahluwalia rightly utters at the concluding part of her struggle “I’m not the complete picture, on the contrary I’m a small part of the bigger picture”
Well those who were reading this expecting a comment on the movie making would have been utterly disappointed after going through this. I’m no armchair expert to comment on the style of movie making as I hardly know anything about how important is a spot boy to the production unit, to comment on anything as big a movie would be like walking on a battlefield bare handed just hoping that I befriend a few on the other side of ma faction. What I really loved was the way the topic was handled and eventually shaped up to make a movie out of a real instance. This topic has always been close to me and I have just tried to bring forth the plight of a married woman.So, do we have a few serious questions to ask ourselves? Well you know it better!

The Burning Issue

There has been a lot of brouhaha about the monetary tightening measures that the RBI Governor is exercising to control the headline inflation rate.But looking into the nuances of this problem ,the deep rooted cause lies in another aspect of the economy which is equally important,i.e. growth. There have been fears raised over the growth of the Indian economy being limited to the urban side of the populace.The rural economy has largely been averse to this growth rate thanks to their non participation,as there have not been any concrete measures taken by the Govt. to include them in the upward spiral that the economy has been witnessing,the reason being does their inclusion has any significant impact on the economy?Sure it does.Let us look this problem of Inflation V/s Growth a little objectively.

If you go through the business dailies you will find that probably all the economists are of the view that the current phase of high inflation is largely driven by supply side constraints.And rightly so as the production of food grains have been stagnating for a couple of years in a row,let alone seeing any growth.The world wheat production is down for two straight years thanks to the drought conditions being witnessed in Australia,one of the major producers of wheat.India has done itself no good by ignoring the critical condition of water reserves in states like Punjab.India used to be self sufficient with the food grain requirement but the lack of care to include the rural economy has cost us dearly.The growth has hardly been inclusive as can be seen by the abysmal situation prevalent in the rural areas in terms of depleting water resources,higher costs of fertilizers,declining productivity of the agreable land,shortfall of credit available to farmers,lack of technology inclusion in the farming system et al.Although recently the Govt has increased the minimum procurement price being given to the farmers producing wheat by around 33% as compared to the last year but measures like these are a temporary soothing and also burden the tax payer’s purse.

The need therefore is for more reformist measures like microfinance model which ensures easy availability of money to the rural populace, the replication of the model employed by the Nobel Prize winner,Mohd. Yunus can be very beneficial as the model has ensured the successful implementation of microfinance lending viz easy availability of funds for all and very high percentage of timely repayment rate. India Inc has also been active on this front as the likes of Bharti and ITC have undertaken measures like contract farming which ensures that the rural farmer is assured of the buyer and also technology upheaval by these corporations enhances the productivity of the existing land.But due to the lack of clarity on policy front these companies have been skeptical in putting in a long term partnership with these farmers.The Govt needs to step in and assure that no policy changes is going to impact the long term viability of the partnership between these two sides.On the worsening water situation ,the FM has announced a huge revival package for the canals in the country.As the initiative has already been taken now it must be ensured that the measures see the light of the day within the stipulated time frame.It should be made amply clear that if we fail to include the rural structure in this growth phase,we are sure to pay a price for the same ,if not now then later.So now if we can see the eagle vying for its prey we better catch hold of the gun.