Flying thoughts!

Admonishment to others yet feign fun to me, so involved in the driving with a single thought in mind-to win that the upshots of driving rash never hit my mind during whole race. It was just me and my bike that was enjoying the finals of the race. I was warned by few of my friends via eye contacts, who came to see the race, for my driving sense that day but somehow being content with myself, I ignored them. I was having a lead of about 100mts with the second contender, still I over speeded to finish the race early and what happened next was not so good-my bike crashed without a warning and I was lying helpless in the middle of the track with a hope to remain alive, the sudden crash also entangled two more racers behind me and thus finishing the race in between for three of us. Not able to breathe properly I was hoping for some help to arrive although it was altogether my fault. With half opened and heavy eyes I realized that one more biker was approaching towards me with lost balance and all I could see was the tyre of a 150kg bike was ready to wreck my head like a bullet towards its prey. Death was the only possible outcome of that crash. I asked God “please don’t let me die this time, I won’t over speed again, I know it’s my fault but please forgive me this time. I am sorry, I am sorry”.

Few seconds later was a sudden jolt in my head that took the hell out of me, I was still whispering incessantly “please, please, not this time”. It took a brief for me to realize that I was in my bed and the clock hanging in the wall had its hands at right angle to constitute 3am. With sweat all over and heart thudding as it wants to come out of the body as soon as possible, I was so thankful to God that it was just a dream and I was still alive. This is what we call a nightmare probably-a very very bad dream. My head remained so heavy that I could not sleep well that night, but I was ok with it as it was not really smashed. 

Next day I could not let my thoughts to roam anywhere else, but around this dream. Few hours back I was in a different world, everything existed and I raced.  I remember the cheer of the crowd, I remember that it was morning 9:45 when the race got started, I even remember the worried faces of my friends when I was over speeding. Appearance of the things was as real as it is right now. I might sound like a fool but I really wondered if all that was real, if not then what was it? How was I able to feel everything if they were not real? A series of thoughts ensued. Result was a justified thought-What is a dream?

First thing that comes to most of the minds seeking answer to any question, weird or meaningful, is perhaps Google, same in my case. Demonstrating the trivial quality of any human being-hunger for knowledge, I begin my expedition in the interconnected world of internet. It was interesting to know after few searches that dream analysis has been a subject of interest for many and the literature on the topic can be traced back to 2000BC. Ancient Egyptians and Greeks believed the dreams to be the messages from supernatural worlds, which are communicated by the Gods and interpreted by the Priests. Was my bike race and the accident that followed was a message from Gods? Does it mean that I should never take part in any race or the conclusions would be severe? Bothered a bit by these theories I found few contradicting theories that added to my relief. Modern theories believe that dreams are just the reflection of one’s subconscious mind, which keeps acquiring thoughts always, all the information in the subconscious collectively make up a dream which might not have any relation with the reality, which appeared quite true when I realize that I always wanted to drive at a speed of 100+ but never got an opportunity or never dared probably. It means that I was provided a day to fulfill my dream in dreams, although, probably, killed at the end but I really lived a racer at least for a day.

So the conclusion was, it was me who created that racer out of me to live my own dream, and the racer gets killed after enjoying the race to its best. The phenomenon that I called as ‘killed’ was actually the completion of my wish in the dream world and getting me back to my real world by waking me up. It seems quite a logical explanation without any more answers to find out.

But the thing that puzzled me more now is – What is life then? Is it someone’s dream which I am living? Is my life the result of the subconscious of someone, who has incomplete wishes in his real life?  The traits that I bear today are actually someone’s wish to be?  I can feel everything in exactly the same way now as I felt in my dream. Everything is as real now as it was in my dream. Are the things around me real? What is reality? Should I call the death in this world as only the waking up of someone in some other world?Is it a Dream world or the reality that I am witnessing?

Dreams are reality or reality is a dream?

CLOSED - 'An open letter to Anna Hazare'

'An open letter to Anna Hazare', appeared in The Hindu(http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/article2331292.ece), dated 6th August, for which I had a conversation with the writer; Hema Raghvan. Below is the verbatim mail that we shared.

1:
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Dear hema,

Saw your article which fears the fall of Indian democracy because of Anna Hazare. Nice to see that you too are concerned about India, below is the verbatim with original in black and my comments in red. Please have a look.

“

Dear Shri Anna Hazareji,

I am a septuagenarian like you. Like you, I fight for principles and fight [Nice to know really, but unfortunately I am not aware]following the Gandhian way of satyagraha. But you may not include me as a member of ‘civil society' as we differ in the means to be adopted to secure the ideal ends.[]

Gandhiji never resorted to coercion to have his way. He never used fasting to blunt his opponent to accept his views and ideals. He never abused the British whose rule he fought against (except for one odd remark about a ‘gutter inspector')[may be this is the only remark that you know, others are hidden, who knows?]. But you call the Prime Minister a ‘liar' because he has accepted the Cabinet decision not to include the Prime Minister within the purview of the Lokpal.

Dr. Singh is a team leader [every Indian except Congressians, will laugh at this line if you call him a leader. A leader is one who leads, not the one who follows; tell me if there is any Indian who wants to lead like Man Mohan singh. Why doesn’t he come out in front of Indians to prove the efficacy of govt drafted bill? Why the public should remain under speculations? If the bill drafted by govt has got the potential to remove the corruption, being a leader he should prove it to us. A leader never hides, he always face his troops to answer them] and does not impose his views on his Cabinet. This is functioning in the true spirit (ahmm!!) of democracy where the collective wisdom of the majority is respected as against one's own personal views[visit the roads, if you get some time, where there are daily protests going on against this spineless bill. It’s not of one man only]. Did Gandhiji ever tell the British: “Come on, jail me,” when he went on fast. No, because he did not want to deny the British government its right to action. Aren't you whipping up mob hysteria and anger just because the government has not accepted six out of your 40 clauses?[Do you really think it’s all about numbers here, or are you favoring the spineless lokpal draft of our non respectable govt??] Do you mean to say that there can be only your thinking [mind you, see the involvement of public in the support of Anna, this can’t be said as only one’s opinion] and there shall be no alternative?[PLEASE SUGGEST THE ALTERNATIVE, WE(Indians) WILL BE MORE THAN GRATEFUL TO HAVE IT FROM ANYONE] Your silence about the mining scam in Karnataka is baffling[Feeling pity on you for this statement, why do you want him to speak about this, go ahead, you can speak too, you too are a responsible citizen of this country as much as he is and govt’s silence on any issue is much more baffling, you just didn’t notice it because you might have got used to it]. But you choose to vent your righteous ire on the Prime Minister and his government! [Even I do it, call me Anna too in that case]

You say you are not against democracy but against the government. The government, elected by the people can be thrown out at the next hustings[Do you really think we have any democracy left ?, People of India have lost lakhs of crores, yes lakhs of crores, to these politicians. If you define democracy like “money of people for the corrupts” then only you are right]. This is democracy. If you are in favour of democracy, why are you against a democratically-elected government that is given a mandate of just five years to govern?[Five years are not ‘just’, and if we have elected a govt it never means we should be bearing it for five years for whatever acts they do ]

You did a yeoman service, pushing the government to table the Lokpal Bill in this monsoon session [This bill was first introduced in 1968 and still pending, what do you think could be the possible reason of this delay?? Moreover who has brought the issue back into notice? Was it you or Anna?]. But you cannot say that ‘it should be my team's version and nothing else.'[They can say for it should be a majority version, to find out the truth go to the roads where you will see common man standing in support of Anna, or against the govt version of Lokpal bill, I think you are not in touch with common Indian man] You [Not to mention again and again, it’s not him only, it’s me and many like me who support him.] want to bring all three main pillars of democracy — the legislative, the executive and the judiciary — under the jurisdiction of the Lokpal to function as an effective single pillar for deciding on crime and punishment [do u want to see PMs like Mr Rao, god forbids if Laalu to make mockery at these weak pillars of so called democracy??]. The dance of democracy unleashed by you and your team has every danger of destroying our democracy.[“so called democracy”, we don’t have a democracy anymore, it’s already destroyed. This movement is all about restoring it again]

“

Don’t be against someone just because you don’t feel him right; better suggest some alternatives and the possible corrections that can be done.  Like every Indian I am tired of the daily corruption now, but we have to live with it. This is a chance that we should take to remove the very roots of it. If you think that all this is Anna’s personal script, better check the statements made by SC judge, Mr. Narayan Murthi, Mr Aziz Aremji, Aamir Khan, and many other tycoons. Hear it too from me and every Indian those are protesting against govt draft of Lokpal everyday in every city of India, and then you will be surely convinced that it’s not anything personal to anyone.

Few questions before finishing:

Do you think we can mitigate poverty without corruption?

Can you link corruption to Inflation?

Is terrorism possible without corruption?

Do you know about the status of the tax that we pay? It’s used for us or it’s residing in Swiss accounts with unnamed account holder?

Do you think our dream of developed India will be true by 2020?

There are millions of similar questions in many minds, answer these few with true heart to yourself and you will see the need of the 6 clauses that were not entertained.

PS. Any offenses unintentional, but could not resist to write when I saw your text.

PPS. "I am an Indian like you, I too fight for principles " sounds much better.

Regards,

Pawan.
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2:
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from hema raghavan hema.vr@hotmail.com to pawan.gangwani@gmail.com date Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 4:15 PM subject RE: In response to "Open letter to Anna Hazare" "http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/article2331292.ece" mailed-by hotmail.com

Very well expressed with incisive points of view.
My simple answer is there are alternatives which Mr. AH( who is called the second Mahatma)  and all of you should understand that one man's fast is  not the country's gain. On the other hand, the country will benefit and become a corruption-free nation if Mr.Ah and his supporters inspire the masses to sacrifice their unholy greed for more  by taking recourse to bribery. If we sacrifice our greed and take to ethical ways, where will be the bribe taker? Cleanse one's own stable and not try to look for the mole in others' eyes.

Do you think we can mitigate poverty without corruption? Yes, if each one of us shares 10% of our resources . During the independence struggle, my father, in response to the call of Rajaji gave up his annual increment. I come from such a family.

Can you link corruption to Inflation? To some extent. Inflation is due to the traders making merry whenthere is a global inflation. If we the consumers take a pledge not to buy nor indulge in wasteful expenditure, inflation can be contained.

Is terrorism possible without corruption? Terrorism has nothing to do with corruption. Rajas and Kalmadis are economy's terrorists

Do you know about the status of the tax that we pay? It’s used for us or it’s residing in Swiss accounts with unnamed account holder? Not all. Yes, a certain %age. Why should black money of others worry us? Black money is due to corrupt practices. Let us try to contain bribery.

Do you think our dream of developed India will be true by 2020? Yes, I am confident if democracy is not substituted by mobocracy. What has happened in Arab nations and what is happening in London  can get replicated in India if we whip up mass hysteria. Better that each one of us pledges to do his/her work sincerely and ethically.

By the way, I should add that I have held very senior positions in the university and never once in my personal or professional life I have resorted to giving or taking bribes. Another point is when I say I am 70+, that was addressed to afellow Indian of70+

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3:
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from pawan gangwani pawan.gangwani@gmail.com to hema raghavan date Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 12:34 PM subject Re: In response to "Open letter to Anna Hazare" "http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/article2331292.ece" mailed-by  gmail.com

My thoughts included, spare me for grammatical error and typos if any, as I am not a regular writer.

On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 4:15 PM, hema raghavan <hema.vr@hotmail.com> wrote:

Very well expressed with incisive points of view.
My simple answer is there are alternatives which Mr. AH( who is called the second Mahatma)  and all of you should understand that one man's fast is  not the country's gain. On the other hand, the country will benefit and become a corruption-free nation if Mr.Ah and his supporters inspire the masses to sacrifice their unholy greed for more  by taking recourse to bribery. If we sacrifice our greed and take to ethical ways, where will be the bribe taker? Cleanse one's own stable and not try to look for the mole in others' eyes.

Do you think we can mitigate poverty without corruption? Yes, if each one of us shares 10% of our resources . During the independence struggle, my father, in response to the call of Rajaji gave up his annual increment. I come from such a family. Sharing might have worked at that time, but its not in goodwill for todays India. We are already suffering the sting of reservation that bites us daily, which was initially set up for 5 years and is continued till date. We have made reserved castes handicapped, majority of them have no fighting spirit for anything, let it be education, job or whatever, they dont like to compete knowing its already there for them. Sharing would be much like spoon feeding, instead a good idea is to make all learn parallel with others, good idea would be to create opportunities which get suppressed today because of corruption involved every where. A normal Indian competing for a post in police has to have a jack or money to get into it, he has no other option. And if he pays say 5 lakhs to get a 15k/month job, he will surely get into the path of corruption to at least get his paid money back.

Can you link corruption to Inflation? To some extent. Inflation is due to the traders making merry whenthere is a global inflation. If we the consumers take a pledge not to buy nor indulge in wasteful expenditure, inflation can be contained.  Lets take a practical example instead of theory, Sugar prices have surged last year enormously, that is real inflation for common man. Let me explain the reason that I could understand with certain level of investigation. Maharashtra is the major producer of Sugar, and Maharashtra also have Sharad Powar-one of the most corrupt person on earth. I came to know about the huge donation taken by sugar mills from Mr Powar, which in turn left the only option for Mill owners to increase the price of Sugar. This is just one example, countless others are there similar to this. I dont think I can pledge not to buy Sugar or say Onion, these are the necessities for a common man. Now if I complaint against Powar, it will probably result in a CBI probe, which is nothing but a govt body controlled by govt, and will take probably 20 years or more from now to come into  a handicapped conclusion. Only option left here is to have a body independent of govt involvement which can probe men like him within a time limit. This is one of the 6 clauses that govt has disagreed. Here me and many others feel why Anna is right.

Is terrorism possible without corruption? Terrorism has nothing to do with corruption. Rajas and Kalmadis are economy's terrorists.  Taking the point of Raja's and Kalmadi, do you really think Raja and Kalmadi's are the only one behind the scenes, and Mr . MMS(worst PM India has ever seen), has no idea about the scam. License for 2G have been allocated in 2008 to novices Telcos(unitech for ex, which has no relation with Telecom) in the price rate of 2001, could this be possible without the knowledge of PM?? If he was really not aware then he is not the PM and the PM office is getting controlled from somewhere else, no bigger proof than this can be given for him being spineless.

   Coming to the point of terrorism, Consider an example: What would it take for a common man in India to get his
   photo identity like driving license or votor ID?? a few hundred bucks and he doesn't even need to show his driving
   to any official, and will get an identity at his home at his mentioned time. Now this thing applies to anyone who
   want to get such identity and live here as an Indian, that is what happens with most of the terrorist cases,
   terrorists make themselves amicable to the city which they want to intrude.

Do you know about the status of the tax that we pay? It’s used for us or it’s residing in Swiss accounts with unnamed account holder? Not all. Yes, a certain %age. Why should black money of others worry us? Black money is due to corrupt practices. Let us try to contain bribery. Its not their black money which we are concerned, its our money which has turned out black. Bribe is involved in daily practice today in every sector, If I dont pay bribe to a babu, my file wont move to judge's desk for hearing. If you are untouched by this yet, you might have not got the situations to go to govt offices for some work.

Do you think our dream of developed India will be true by 2020? Yes, I am confident if democracy is not substituted by mobocracy. What has happened in Arab nations and what is happening in London  can get replicated in India if we whip up mass hysteria. Better that each one of us pledges to do his/her work sincerely and ethically.

By the way, I should add that I have held very senior positions in the university and never once in my personal or professional life I have resorted to giving or taking bribes. Another point is when I say I am 70+, that was addressed to afellow Indian of70+

Take my words and thousand dollars bet, Its impossible in 8 more years to attain a status of developed India.  We have created such a huge gap between rich and poor which if not subdued will only result in civil war, forget about a developed India.

   
I really respect and appreciate that you are concerned about our country but the thoughts for that are not practical for present conditions. We are living in an age of divided India, we don't have a common language for us to communicate. In maharashtra they favor only Marathi, moreover oppose Hindi, just because of an idiotic leadership. Leaders try to get public votes by touching issues of language and castes. Similar thing is worse in South India. Just to get some votes they have divided India. We are divided by language, by caste, by birth place and many other factors only because of corruption by the leaders.

We have been suffered by congress for more than 50 years, and as a result we have got: Corruption at its peak, poverty, illiteracy, PM that cant take decisions, widening lacuna between rich and poor, houses that a common man cant buy and many many other society diseases.

I want to complaint about many of corrupt practices that I know in daily life, but I have got no channel to communicate. I can lodge a police complaint which wont be taken care unless I provide them bribe, I have no channel to oppose this bribe too. I can lodge a case but it will be only me who will suffer from it, I need to wait atleast 20 years to get a certain resolution,when it might be not relevant for me, which might not be justified too.

PS.- I live in a housing society which needs an ID card for its residents,  those ID cards have to be approved by the near by police station. Police requires rent agreement and a photo identity to approve the ID card. They also demand for Rs200 bribe to approve, and they wont even try to question any of your document if given the bribe.
Now, anyone can get a fake rent agreement stamped by Notary person in 100Rs. That rent agreement + 200 Rs can give anyone an identity of this housing society.
Try to link this with terrorism, I think links are easy to identify here.


I am living in this India which I want to make better, that is the reason I support Anna Hazare.
It wont be a one man's fast, count me in, I am Anna too!!

Regards
Pawan Gangwani

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Above was the mail chain shared between me and Hema (writer for the article 'http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/article2331292.ece' in 'The Hindu' dated 6th august). I am eagerly waiting for the response to my last mail.

Oh God !! .... Ohh who ?

GOD:

A three letter word, probably the most debated ever. What is God? Or who is God? Would he be somewhat similar to a human ahh! Can I even call the God ‘him’? Or is it something beyond understanding of giant human mind? People have always been debating over this topic ever since they got the ability to interact. A class believes in no God, we know them as atheists, and another believes how anything can exist without the supreme power, everything in the universe is controlled with this omnipresence of power. 

I often wonder how the first man on the earth had ever started his belief or no belief on God. Why anyone would think about something ever if he has not seen it or anyhow not sensed it. We think about something when we know about it from some means, considering myself, I believe on God because I have heard of him via elder members in my family and also I have heard stories about Rama, Krishna, Paigambar Mohammad and many other forms whom I worship as God. But suppose I was the first man on the earth, how can I even think of the God without hearing about him from anyone. The question remains a mystery in itself; it’s not about belief in God rather it’s about the start of belief or disbelief in God.

Was the first man or group of men named their fears as God and started worshiping whenever troubled, as they might not have answers to many of their fears that time? May be that’s why different cultures consider air, water and fire as a form of God as the men then also, like us, could not have any control over these factors and must have often faced natural calamities. Was that the start of God, is it nothing but the name of our fears. We also know names like Rama, Krishna and many others who are worshiped till date. Did they possess the virtue that was worth worshiping? We hear many good things about them, also that was the time when man was considered mature enough to analyze anything around him. So quality of being good, rationality in decisions, compassion and care for others, being against the evil and many more traits like those might have made those good quality people to be worshiped amongst their society. Fear and belief of rational judgment looks very interesting factors which might have started the belief in the God.

Every human being has different level of intelligence than any other, some have much more curiosity than others, they believe in the reason of everything. That’s why we have big bang theory, gravitational law, E=mc^2 and many other discoveries. A group of men among these don’t believe in any form of Supreme power over human being, they can trace out the reason for almost everything that happens and thus remains no reason for them to believe in something above humanity. Atheist, we call those people who don’t believe in God. They claim that the evolution of human being or any form of life can be totally explained with the help of science. But some questions are unanswered for them also, like how the first ever form of life came into existence. What was the cause behind it? Moreover how this universe came into existence? Theories says that it all started with an empty space and our universe is the result of a huge explosion that released the energy which caused the formation of matter that condensed over time resulting into the formation of planets like sun and earth. Further discoveries revealed that the planets are in the groups called galaxies where each planet like earth revolves around one fixed planet like sun for our galaxy; these galaxies are incessantly moving apart from each other with time and with some acceleration. So with this known fact if we go backward in time, something must have been there which must have caused this explosion or imparted a force to these ever moving galaxies, but still unanswered. Was that God who did this, if no then who did?

We are still living with many unanswered questions, many things unexplained and this being one of them. Is there anything which is indeed controlling the whole universe or its mere imagination of human mind just because we are unable to demystify some things and we need a generic reason for our unresolved mysteries? Is it our fear that we worship or is it the belief on goodness that builds our faith on the deity? Who is God?

Is it a creation of human mind or is he the creator of it??

Antillia.

The name of a legendary island in the west of Portugal and Spain, resting in the Atlantic Ocean, pictured in the map as almost a complete rectangle. At times it was also connected with Isle of Blessed and Fortunate Island: pious island according to Greek mythologies, considered as a paradise for the brave mortals. Nevertheless the origin of the name ‘Antillia’ is still not sure. We definitely don’t know from where this word is derived but this word is getting quite a spotlight in India and abroad now a days. You might have got the idea till now what I am about to talk here, if not then it’s also the name of a 27 story building, more like a royal one, located at Altamount road in south Mumbai, belongs to the richest Indian Mukesh Ambani. With all the world class amenities that can be thought of, having a base area of more than 4000 sq mt. with overall cost being more than 8000 crores,  it’s the most expensive house known to the modern humanity.

With the house got completed recently, it has caught everyone’s eye varying from people driving Swift to people in the backseat of Audi, from media to the corrupts everyone is talking about the opulence show from this Reliance chairman. People in India are divided with their thoughts on this mansion. I remember some of the excerpts from various print media and telemedia condemning Mr. Ambani for his newly built palace. There was a statement made by Mr MMS when this house started getting attention was related to the salaries of Indian CEOs, he believes that Indian CEOs are overwhelmingly paid and they should reckon about their salaries, as this is not morally correct to take the remuneration as high as 10000 times of per capita income of the country. The point made definitely has a meaning, as we live in a country where still more than half of the population lives in abject poverty with dejected dreams where lacuna between rich and poor has widened a lot and still widening. There is still a horde among the 1.20billion who struggle to earn their daily meal. If in such locale you show off your abundance, it’s not considered ethical being part of the same society. This point was discussed quite a time by our highly immature, publicity hungry, media too to go on few more days with a news for big-guns savvy public. After all the house also carries a reputation of a celebrity, and why not, it belongs to a celebrity too. But Mr MMS must have forgotten while making this statement that we are watching almost daily a new scam by his peers and which is making his peers to take much more than this without any hard work as done by Mukesh Ambani.

Being so much discussed everywhere; everyone wants to talk something about it now. We have a unique way of discussion anyways we can discuss on any damn topic without knowing much about it, provided that it is initiated by some one else. We improvise our speaking skills on the spot and can present our views on an alien subject too. Most of the times those are not our thoughts that we speak, rather we make our minds by listening to others and we force our minds to think in that direction in which others are thinking, without knowing the authenticity of the subject and assertions we make on it. Subjects that get attention are generally those which deal with life of others, like a tape alleged to have personal talks of Amar singh and Bipasha, breakups or starts of relations of celebrities, which we admire, Cricketers getting married or analogous to those. These are mainly the issues exaggerated by our value loosing media to gain public attention and to increase their brand. We being the busiest peoples on the earth know only what our media shows to us. We are very much untouched by other facts till those are exposed to us. For an instance: many of us didn’t know about Anna Hazare till we saw that austere personality on our television sets standing for a noble cause. We are just not bothered about existence of such persons in our country until they stand for us again and again. Now all this lack of awareness causes us to believe anything, right or wrong, bestowed upon us. We resist using our own wisdom to decide the credibility of any issue.

Not to forget that media can be biased too, no surprises if they adulterate the facts and present to us because they know very well that most of us don’t use our minds while asserting for a topic. If someone wants to correlate this, just think of the last time when you saw SRK exalted by media for his past movies or something else, was there any IPL publicity needed by him around or any of his new movie was about to release then. Even you can notice nowadays that suddenly Digvijay Singh is in the news most of the time, making ridiculous statement about anything even if he knows it or not. He was sad that no last rituals were performed for the world’s most wanted terrorist, I don’t know if Obama personally called this fellow and conveyed this thing. Think about it for a while that why he is so concerned about a man who is responsible for millions of lives for whom last rituals were not performed because of him. One of the facts is that there are upcoming elections in UP where a major vote bank is of Muslim community and anything done or any statement made which relates to a particular community, certainly last rituals carries ample emotions for any religion, will definitely help to gain popularity in that brigade. I might have taken more than needed examples here to put my point that before making any mind on certain thing one should use his mind too.

Recently there was a news flooded in the media about a statement made by Ratan Tata that Mukesh Ambani’s house shows lack of empathy to the poors. I can bet to the last penny that Ratan Tata can’t make such statement, these are just quotes taken out of context and published. Mr Tata knows what respect they have in the society and they know well how to maintain it. I have never seen this man making any such statement earlier about anyone, and to my belief he won’t do it either. These were just false alarms rang again by the media, which can’t even interpret correctly what someone intended to say. Even Tata’s representatives have said this publically that no such meaning should be drawn and they also threatened to sue the publication responsible for this. But the damage had been done and there was a new topic of interest with everyone.

We only know about the expenditure done on this villa but most of us don’t know that even today Mukesh Ambani works for more than 12hrs a day to earn the life style that he deserves. Owner of one of the biggest industrialist group worldwide, creator of millions of jobs, key player in supporting Indian GDP, one who has taken the name of India to the heights, an ideal for many entrepreneurs, because of him we have an Indian in worlds 10 richest person. This can be taken as an inspiration by anyone to get success in life and make such a reputation for himself or on the contrary this can be argued at just another tea time that why one should earn this much of money and make a show off with it. One can think of the house as a masterpiece of engineering or can think of it as a waste of land where many more could have been accommodated.

Antillia, a 27 story mammoth with a height of 173 meters, one of the masterpieces of Engineering, having a feather in its cap of being the world’s most expensive house having a worth of 8000 crore, which is in our own country, belongs to the richest Indian, must have expected eulogies from every art lover at least, instead of all the negative publicity that it has gained.

While gathering facts for this article I came to know that interior decoration of the house of Praful Patel, our aviation minister, is going on and the house has an enormous area of 1 lakh sq feets which is more than double of the Antillia, but we may not know about expenditure on this ever as he is not a industrialist who have to get his expenses audited and again media can be paid to not to make this news public.

What we know is only what we see, we still don’t know the names holding 100s of accounts in Swiss bank. We don’t know how the wealth of certain politicians grew from few thousands to million dollars in one or two years, we dont know how the budget of commonwealth got up by 1000 crores. For us Bill G is the richest man but what if some unnamed politician posses much more of it already which is not known to anybody. There are many more things to ponder than cursing a man for living in his deserved dream house. Think if only 100 out of 120 million of us got motivated by this man or his house may be and only one or two of them can turn up like him, wont there be ample number of jobs created inside the nation during their course of success.

P.S Please leave a feedback comment below if any.....

One more Love Story .....!!

With the Sun giving hugs to the climate these days and the mercury is about to come out of thermometer, hanging out for the whole day on weekends is not a good option in this summer. Although moving out for some window shopping in the evening proves to be an idle bird watch and you realize that there is something really hot out of the idiot box too. In summer you can see some really exotic and shortest of dress collection around. Evenings were fine but what to do with the whole day of weekends was something I was mulling over.  Books and movies seem to be the best buddies in this situation. After having enough of motion stories, I thought to switch to the printed ones. With a thought to read a book again and then writing about it, earlier was ‘I too had a Love Story’, this time choice was ‘Love Story’ by Erich Segal.  Unlike the earlier one this doesn’t contain a ‘had’ in its title. I remember when I had encountered this past tense, ’had’, in the title first time there was a anxiety within me to know why such a title was used. Fear of the worst while reading it was appeased when I began it but came true while in the last pages of the book. That was a tear jerking moment when all of a sudden everything changed in the life of Ravin, Ravin and Khushi were the lead characters of the book, with the death of Khushi, khushi being Ravin’s fiancée. It was sad to read that book after knowing that the story was real.

This all made me to choose a fiction this time with no past tense or something strange in the title. I opted for ‘Love Story’, title being as simple as it can be and sounds more like a romantic tale. Moreover it was not a giant mammoth sized book and thus everything was in favor of me reading it.

This became quite interesting as soon as I encountered the first line of the book, which phrases the death of a twenty five year old girl. I was surprised at first if all the books I read will kill girls or every love story ends like this only. I also had a thought of saving this girl, as already they are not in sufficient number, by not going deep into the book but knowing that it was a fiction I decided to go with it. So now I knew that the girl here is going to die too, fictionally though but girls should not die even in books. It reduces their count further.

It starts as:

“What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful. And brilliant. That she loved Mozart and Bach. And the Beatles. And me.”

It’s not even easy to say about a book which starts from this line. Best seller of 1970s, a true art, Love Story definitely leaves a imprint on you as soon as you start reading it. Death mentioned in the beginning is quite enough for one’s curiosity to build up for this book. First look and the name act as a curtain raiser for the theme of the book: a romantic fiction that catches attention at first line itself.

Eric Wolf Segal the author of the book has originally drafted this as a script of a screenplay which was sold to Paramount pictures for production of a movie on it. While the film was produced Paramount wanted Eric to write it as a Novel as well, which became the US best seller of its time before the movie was completed.It builds an expectation from the book when you come to know that the Author is a Harvard graduate as a poet and a Latin Salutatorian: the title given in US to the second highest rank person in whole graduating class of a particular discipline. The master’s and doctorate degrees in literature add more feathers to his cap.

Story revolves around two individuals Oliver Barrett IV, the successor of the Barretts and the only heir of the Barretts legacy and Jennifier Cavilleri, daughter of a not so rich baker, but quick witted and charming, she was also a music student at Redcliff. Having a background of wealthy and well reputed Harvard graduates, Oliver also was pursuing his graduation from the Harvard. He meets Jenny at the Redcliff’s library. Conversation starts with a kind of fight among them and ended up with a date between the two. They fall in love with each other. The story nicely depicts their initial days of love. Even short conversations between them are beautifully brightened with thoughts that you feel involved in the story. There are quite interesting conversations of son and father too, Junior and Senior Oliver. Those conversation frames an image of a quite disciplined and obedient son.

After graduation they both decided to marry but Oliver’s father stands against the marriage, which made them to marry against the senior Oliver will. This step severed Oliver IV from his father’s will. The couple started living in a rented house and Jenny chose to work as a teacher. Graduating as a law student with flying colors makes Oliver to get a reputed job. With everything going fine now, there was a sudden shock when Jenny was diagnosed with Leukemia. 

Limited financial flow with their jobs was just enough to sustain them and desperate need of money arises as Jenny was admitted to the hospital. Book describes emotions and feelings with each and every conversation between its characters. One of such heartrending conversation is when Jenny speaks to her father about her funeral. Now in the story the first statement qualifies with the death of Jenny. End leaves you with mixed feelings of joy, when their romance was at peak in the initial days and sorrow when life became cruel to them and the girl died finally.

One of the touching lines said, by Jenny and Oliver to his father in the book which you always remember after reading is “Love means never having to say you are sorry”.

Finally, 4/5 to the book for presenting everything in such a beautiful way, that you tend to complete it. Go for it if you want some short romantic story.