Thoughts of a project manager/husband/father/nature lover/ traveler
A friend of mine is making some beautiful diyas for this Diwali. Please message me if you are interested in getting them. You can also visit their website to view or get in touch with them directly.
Today me and my colleagues were having a very interesting conversation in the cafeteria. The topic was “How have we become like this”? Considering the fact that we got independence in the year 1947 and since then how as a society we have become more and more corrupt. We compared the corruption levels in India to other countries and realized that we are probably worst of the lot and were left wondering where did we go wrong? Is corruption so imbibed in us that we will never change? Or have we started to see some change in the society? During the conversation, we tried to identify the beginnings of India being corrupt. We agreed that we were corrupt since the time India was ruled by many kingdoms. During those times, there were constant fights between two kingdoms with one wanting to establish supremacy over the other and obtain the resources of the other kingdom. During those times, allies would have been paid fees to fight and thus quite a lot of money would be exchanged. Some of it would be exchanged to return a favor, some to get certain work done etc. We felt this how corruption got its roots in India. Greed – was the root cause of corruption.
There is corruption in all the countries, but not to the extent that we have in India. The reason we felt was lack of implementation of laws. While we have laws, we do not have the will to implement the law, thus allowing people to get away with corruption. Once people stop fearing the law, it becomes a way of life and that’s what we are seeing today. Every one from the top to bottom goes scot free even though they would have broken a thousand laws or would be involved in scams worth billions of rupees. In developed countries, people don’t get away. Law is applied equally and hence everyone fears committing a crime or being corrupt. We don’t have equality in our laws and thus we end up creating more problems rather than solving them.
While there are always a few people who are fighting for the right thing, people in general need to awake and move towards changing their behavior. Even a person accepting a bribe is successful when someone pays him. If we don’t pay, chances are people won’t ask. I believe if we have the strength to apply laws with equality and speed up the judiciary process, we should be able to move towards a better society.
I was trying to get a picture of the sunset today and somehow the shot I took turned out like this. I have no idea this has happened. Any ideas?
The image I was trying to take is below:
It is September and since last one week, the 10 day Ganesh festival is on in Mumbai and rest of the country. Last week I had the opportunity to visit Lalbaugcha Raja in Parel. Lalbaugcha Raja is one of Mumbai’s most famous Ganapati’s and attracts hordes of people every day while the festival is on. I It is believed that this Idol of Lord Ganesha is Navsacha Ganpati (which means the fulfiller of all wishes) and hence over 1.5 million people visit this Ganesh Pandal daily during the 10 day Ganesh festival. Soon Lalbaugcha Raja may become a place of pilgrimage. My tryst with visiting Lalbaugcha Raja started 3 years back when I decided to go and visit, since I had heard a lot of people visit the pandal and because it is so famous. Since then I have been going there every year. The entire madness around the place attracts me. There are so many people just waiting to get a glimpse of the Lord. There is always a mad rush to visit. For the past years, I used to visit early in the morning in the anticipation of fewer people, but was proven wrong. So this year, I decided to visit around midnight. As soon as I crossed Curry Road bridge, I was amazed to see throngs of people just walking towards Lalbaugcha Raja. I have never seen so many people gathered in this part of the town during this time of the night. It seemed that all the people from Mumbai were there. In this I decided to call up my friend Prakash and asked him to come along with me. Luckily Prakash knew one of the volunteers who manage crowds and we could enter the VIP lane, which was sparsely populated and managed to pray silently for some time. This isn’t the case when you are standing in the other two lines. You get jostled, pushed etc, which hardly allows any chance of a silent, peaceful prayer. The entire experience this year was just too good and couldn’t have been possible if my friend didn’t know a volunteer there.
Last Sunday we, me and 5 of my friends, decided to go to trekking to Asherigad fort. The fort is atleast 800 years old and was rebuilt by Portuguese when they had captured the fort. In 1737, Peshwa won this fort during his campaign of the Konkan and in 1818 this fort came under the British rule. We had two places in mind before commencing the trek – Gorakshgard or Asherigad. Since some people had already done Gorakshgard, we decided to go to Asherigad. Asherigad is approx. 80 kms from Mumbai. Since there were 6 of us, we decided to take a car and a bike. Since the monsoons are almost over, I wanted to take the bike out for a long ride and decided to take my bike. We started the journey at around 745am in the morning and reached the base village (Khodkona) at 10:15am after having a healthy breakfast. Since this was our first time trekking here, we decided to hire a local guide who would take us to the top. I read quite a few blogs which mentioned that there are signs showing direction to the top and back all along the route, I was only able to see few very signs.
The trek begins from the village and the first 30-40 mins are relatively easy as the ground is flat and ascend is not steep. But as we started walking deeper and deeper through the forest, we were practically climbing on the rocks and going up. We reached a spot which was the most difficult part of the entire trek as the climb there is nearly 90 degrees. There is a ladder upon which we had to climb. However, we had still had to lift our entire bodies to reach climb the rock as the ladder covered only 80% of the climb for that rock. Post passing the only major hurdle so far, we covered the rest of the climb relatively easily. The entire uphill climb lasted for almost 3 hours and by the time we got there we were dead tired and had exhausted our supplies of drinking water. Luckily, there is a fresh water lake on the top, where the water is very cold and clean. We filled our water bottles there and decided to rest by the lake for a few minutes.
The path downhill was challenging but relatively easy as we knew the route by now. We were able to reach the base village in 2 hours 20 minutes. We were fortunate as it didn’t rain else it would have been a very difficult trek and a lot of broken bones. Overall it was a good trek and I enjoyed every bit of it.
Took some pics while on a visit to Lalbagh Botanical Gardens in Bangalore. Continue reading “Few more pics”
As most of the people are aware, in the last few weeks the Indian Rupee has lost almost 20% of its value when compared with the US dollar and other currencies the world over. I am not writing this post to discuss on that. We already have those discussions everyday with a whole lot of expert panels on TV and news papers. I am writing this from the perspective of what India should have been. I went to the US for my undergraduate studies, worked for a period of 8-10 months after my graduation and due to visa expiring, could not continue my stay over there. I kept working for the same organization while in India and on the same project. During those times, I believe I had a choice to return back to the US. But I chose not to, because I believed in the promise of India. I felt things were changing for the better, things were improving, the country was moving towards modernization. Poverty was reducing, income was rising across all sectors. The standard of living across the length and breadth of the country was changing for the better. I felt the government of India was finally doing the right things and which was in the interest of the nation. India was a country on the rise and I wanted to ride the wave and be a part of the change. I was 24 then.
But after 7 years of staying here, I have realized the more things change, more they remain the same. There is still widespread corruption amongst all walks in life. The government still indulges in vote bank politics. They still do not have the strength or the capability to take tough decisions – decisions which would address the problems that the country is currently facing. We still pass reforms which are motivated only to get votes. From a security perspective, things are moving from bad to worst. Every time my wife leaves work late at night, I am worried for her security. Common man still faces difficulty in filing complaints. They are being made from one police station to another on the pretext of ‘right jurisdiction’. Politicians shunting out honest officers, people who are willing to make a change to remote areas. We are still not able to respond to any terrorist activity in the country. We are not able to defend ourselves from constant intrusions from Pakistan and China. Economically, we are the worst performing currency in Asia. Job markets are drying, manufacturing sector is almost dead or stagnant. Nothing is being done to revive the same. Red tape prevents setting up of new industries, and now with the Land Act, it is going to be even more difficult. The list goes on and on.
I am 31 now and I realize that the India which I had hoped for, was an illusion and that illusion has faded away.
Took this picture while returning back from work.
Went to this fresh water lake enroute to Kaza Valley in Himachal Pradesh.
I am sitting here at HDFC BANK which happens to be one of the best banks in India to work with. I am here because I need a loan account statement, something which HDFC doesn’t offer online. I am not sure why they would not offer such a basic service on net banking to the customer. At the same time, they only have 3 retail loan branches in Mumbai and that means it is always crowded and results in long wait time for everyone. I have already wasted 20 mins just waiting for my number to be called, all for a statement which they wouldn’t provide on online banking.
The other option is to use phone banking and place a request and they would take 7 working days to send the letter. Talk about some efficiency of work. I believe that a lot of the services which they are currently offering can also be offered online and this would result in considerable saving of time for the consumer and at the same time will reduce some manpower costs for the bank.
My thoughts...My story 