Things that wont simply go off

She texted me up yesterday. It has been sometime we have been in touch. I did deliberately put a full stop, as her marriage had been on the cards for sometime.

She sounded a bit flustered. The guy was showing up his real ‘face’. He put up a lot of restrictions on her- attire, joking, going out. He seems to be disenchanted of the future. He doesn’t open up. She sounded ultimately confused on where this is leading. I knew her persona very well- a very romantic, sensous, humorous person. The fate might be coming up with just the opposite.

I didn’t bother to console her. Is there any point in doing so? The combination of tough horoscope and huge dowry market makes it tough for her parents to get a match. I asked her to face the song.

Its so sad to see even after all the years of female empowerment, we see the total exploitation in the so called institution- marriage. The enormous dowry you have to come up with plus the expenses, it just drains the sanctity off. Earlier the love matches were exempted from dowry, now it became more prevalent there. I recently saw a very old couple mortgaging their home for their daughter’s marriage. The mortgage rates are very high in India, you’ll have no scope of repaying it. The funny part is the couple aren’t poor. They might come into the upper middle class and still they cant afford the ‘marriage’.

Speaking about the horoscopes- I don’t know. There are people who believe in it. I am not questioning the faith. But when the horoscopes becomes an indirect tool for exploitation, is it a right thing?

Good Mornings 02122011

Day in and out the neo Indian intelligentsia have been tweeting and retweeting about ‘much needed economic reforms in India’. ‘The parliamentarians seem to be stabbing the growing India by not debating’. I find it strange that the government passes a crucial, face changing bill and then brings it to the floor. The whole process of democracy looks quite irrelevant here.

The new generation Indians too suffer from a strange case of memory loss. The nuclear bill that had been passed hastily without much discussion and lots of noise catapulted the PM to an exalted position winning him the next election. But I hear no news of it. There have been no plants as promised. But retailing is going to be different and we are going to see lots of changes in Indian landscape but hope there is a debate prior to it.

Sardesai and Tharoor have been quite busy on twitter and so is the financial analysts. But except for some vague expression of job generation, only thing assured is some low cost consumerism. I engaged in a debate with a guy on twitter. He spoke passionately on opening up economy at ‘lower levels’, now whatever that means I asked him a couple of questions:

1. Shutting out competition- is it safe in the long run?

2. How is the small landholders going to benefit

3. Speaking about job generation- why cant these honchos generate jobs in USA and UK?

What followed was a single sentence- we are going to get goods at a low cost. So that’s what is all about-plain greed and ugly consumerism.

I am on leave today and am going for ‘Dirty Picture’ :D a sensible thing to do in these times

RE-volution

Today there was a farewell party for the colleague. Down here men retire from government service at 60. There were a few designated to say ‘good’ words about the departing colleagues. The guy was setting apart the rest of his life to things he couldn’t do in real life. One was reading up all the books he missed in his last 40 years. The item number two was a dream project, some sort of cultivation in a far off land.

It confuses me why people have to wait till 60 to chase their ‘dreams’. May be yes, we have too much to worry in this miserable life. Its hard to live in a third world country. But then there are youths who get inspired by Hollywood and the new age Bollywood. I met a blogger friend, who wanted to do that. Chasing dreams are far removed from film.

The movie star’s only dream is to churn money and the Bollywood kids are merely there thanks to sugar daddies. Dreams are passions are so close to the tender most part of heart. When you chase them you have a risk of losing them. Better leave them alone.

And another kind of revolution is going on- tweeple revolution, is what some people refer it to. Apparently a dam is going to burst it seems drowning half of Kerala. A filmstar (pretty one) joins the fight and now there are millions of guys asking her to retweet, sign digital memos, standing behind her. Gone are the days when Churchill asked for blood. Today’s revolution needs RETWEET

Insensitive...

After a brief absence, here I come back again. I am on the process of preparing myself for another examination. And that really sucks. Meanwhile I got a late night partner to chat with. Well the topic is quite enjoyable- sexuality. Hence I get little time to think about blogging.

The papers have been celebrating the arrest of a leader for publicly violating the court order. The High court had passed an order banning all meetings on public places. Obstruction to public- that was the rational. Today I and thousands of others working and staying at the heart of Kochi had to walk for miles. Reason being Vice President was passing by and hence nothing that moves could move along the roads. The few buses were over crowded and it almost turned a nightmare. Now isn’t this a public nuisance?

And just imagine a President who freezes the public life to inaugurate a private five star hotel. The common man’s wage is gone while she gets paid handsomely for it.

Last week I was more awed than alarmed when Manmohan responded even Diesel has to be deregulated. He doesn’t even bother about the common man who was simply stunned by the hike a few hours ago. Well he is not insensitive as an individual. He is just a part of the giant ruling wheel, that keeps rolling without any sense of empathy for the common man. And thankfully the common man is quick to be awed and slow to react.

We claim to be a democracy and have we ever noticed we produce an elite class election after election. Are we moving towards an oligarchy?

Holy art thou O corporates

India is turning out to be a haven for the rich- legal or illegal. As soon as you make money, you get elevated to the list of untouchables. Neither the government machinery nor the media dare touch you. Same goes the story for the holy men – TATA and Ambani. Never mind the method they employ, as long as crores are made let’s be happy.

I went through the Frontline yesterday. Agreed they are clearly a leftist minded paper and can corrupt your views with ‘red’ thoughts. But thinking about it again, the agitation at Maruti received very little coverage in national media. What concerned us more were the loss the giant manufacturer would end up with and stock markets dipping. Did anyone report the news from the angle of workers? The ‘neutral’ stand has become diluted neutral. If the reports in the article is right, we are losing our freedom to organize. India is fast deteriorating into a banana republic controlled by the corporate.

The Wall Street agitation spreading through the world seems to be of a no issue to us. And least of all we don’t bother about WikiLeaks and the revolution they triggered. For us the poster boys are still Zuckerberg and Jobs.

We celebrate Anna protests with all pomp and gusto while we conveniently forget the Radia tapes and all the sweet talks the big man TATA made. From the looks of it I wont be surprised if the Wall Street shifts to India for safe functioning.

The dance of wipers

Mr.Murdoch owns and controls the nerve centre of world's largest media conglomerate. His reach and control in shaping western and world policies are notorious. Thankfully destiny prevented him from taking over Sky B.

Now when his chips are down, the central figure to emerge is going to be the second largest investor Bin Taleel. Hope he might have already been spoilt by western riches or USA and its conservative policy makers will find themselves in deep shit.

Then I happened to read another news that of the 22 soldiers shot down from a chopper in Afghan 22 belonged to the elite squad that terminated Osama. Now that's what I call a wow!! Although unconfirmed this might cause a pain in Obama's ass and he can kiss his re-election campaign good bye.

Right now I am watching some stupid guy in Delhi trying to whitewash Sheila DIxit. Dude however the best you try, you sound like an asshole. But then you would have made your crores already. So blabber on. Kapil just finished his joker act.

Two men One objective Two reasons

The period called ‘after-office-hours’ is a time for us to rewind and share a laugh with the colleagues. All except the officers would have rushed back home. A stray customer would come in who is promptly and politely shooed off.

One day a guy came in carrying a back pack. He was dressed in formal wear, but not expensive. He came in and asked for the Stressed Assets Recovery cell, which was a floor above (Stressed assets stands for loan defaulters). We presumed his family would have taken some bad debts and this guy would be running from pillar to post to save them.

Some time later he returned back. He had a visible speech defect. I offered him a seat which he refused. He wanted to know if the bank would help him in getting a loan for a textile unit. After shifting to this place I got a chance to come across many aspirants who wanted some kind of loan or the other. Some were genuine and a few were absolutely rogues. All had the impression that ‘the nation’s largest lender’ dished out money for free. This boy seemed very young and absolutely determined. But the speech was causing a problem for us to make out. I offered him a pen and paper, which were refused too.

With very great difficulty he managed to say about his project. But he didn’t have a clear project plan or land. The manager was absolutely stunned that he didn’t have a partner too. He proposed to run this unit alone. I knew from the first second that he would be refused. A publicly listed company would be in jitters about its bad assets every quarter. This has a great chance for turning sour.

The manager tried to convince him that he should route it through the government to get some subsidy.

‘Try to rope in a partner. We don’t think you can make it alone’

With great difficulty he managed to blurt ‘Why not?’

Later the manager told me, ‘Being sincere doesn’t mean you are capable

Then came in another guy in a swanky car that made a lot of noise. He had a expensive watch on the wrist. He wanted to start out a catering services with 15 focal points all over the city. An absolutely stunning idea considering the fact that Kochi is a city of food lovers.

He had all chance to get the loan sanctioned when he fished out the report from his laptop bag.

The first jolt came in when he learnt that only 2/3^rd of the money would be sanctioned by the bank. And no chance for advertising expenses. The guys started blurting out different versions of the proposed project.

In the end it was something like a real estate deal had gone sour and he wanted to pay his debtors!