Preaching Regionalism

We all have learnt a subject named 'Civics' in our school lives and seem to have not liked it much but just that we have to learn it and pass... although it used to be a subject where a lot of my friends did score some good marks and that helped them attain a good place and 'rank' in the class and eventually in the school...

But have we ever thought what it taught us and what it was all about...?

I guess not, right??

That was one subject that taught us civic sense, the values of our democracy, our rights as individuals and citizens of a free country, that we have a democratic society and that we are all aligned to achieve a common aim and that is of being "Indian".

Well that was what the subject taught us and we all mugged it up and passed the exams and then... well and then today we are all becoming a part of a phenomenon that I would call "Preaching Regionalism" than saying Preaching Secularism, etc etc...

I can elaborate this with some examples...

The best thing to have happened in India, after Independence of course, was the advent of television. We all acknowledged it with great admiration and always looked up to it to give us information that would help us in being informed, knowledgeable and in turn would come to know what's happening where. That's the time of the old news channels and a few soaps that used to flood the prime-time... But what has happened now? Let's see...

There are shows which have encouraged the youth of the country to showcase their talents, become famous, be recognised for what they are, have allowed them to take up their hobbies as profession and they have done real good... But then something happened... We started taking things to a different level. We made the shows involve the common public, who would in-turn be the decision makers, than the intelligent and esteemed judges who sit in the panel and give their verdicts... Well it's still ok. I mean the public liked it, but it had a catch and that was that the contestants were to ask for votes (I'd rather say 'beg') and then it went to such an extent that the anchor and the contestant, both, started asking the local regional public to give the votes, just because the person was from a particular state or region. Moreso, the poor participant, in all his ignorance, would go on to speak in his native tongue, which the remaining Indians would't understand, and ask, sorry beg, for the votes... We gave way to becoming narrow from the widened vision of one nation-one community-one India...

Then we have the political parties which bank on the minorities for their vote banks and hence create their small little regional ideologies. Although they portray that they are working for the cause of the nation and that this would indeed help the minorities come up and rub shoulders with the erstwhile 'upper-class' strata of the society, but they do this by first telling people that 'you are so-and-so caste, so-and-so community' and then is when they get the votes. End of the day, the guy who represents them never turns up to his constituency.

The recent happenings in Mumbai, triggered by again a political motive, to show that Mumbaikars or Maharashtrians are not able to get jobs, etc. was again a game being played on the minds of poor and ignorant people so that they will start disliking their own country-men and would, in-tun, force them to move out of the city and eventually their state. "Their state", lol... Still they were successful in doing this (with the efforts of the gooonda's who would trigger such a thought and action and then just dwindle away in the mist of all the hoopla...). Then we have the erstwhile water problem between Karanataka and Tamil Nadu, which leads to such an extent that governments are formed baded on this issue. People kill each other if they come to know they are from this (or that) state. God help us!!

Look at UP, the once 2nd largest state and the largest in terms of population (man-power) and Bihar are all drowned because of these. People just hate their own country-men because they come from a different place, region, etc. and also some have an air that they are superior to the others too... Just gr8 isn't it to watch someone burry the feelings of a particular person just because he is unable to communicate his feelings properly or has a different accent for a language that you and he can understand... We all laugh when this happens, isn't it. But haev we ever thought how good are we? How good are we when it comes to talking in a particular situation, carrying ourselves or behaving to situations...? All because we have this thing that we come from a particular region we are the best and the others are nothing isn't going to solve the problems of poverty, unemployment, poor health services, transport, etc...

I just hope that we all just try to be normal individuals, do things that we should be doing by putting in the elements of reasoning, sanity, logic, and be transparent of the fact that the person in front of us is a xxx or yyy or zzz community or region person but is a just another of the millions, sorry billions, of my countrymen!!

Hail the notion of One India and say that we are all Indians than I am a gujarati, bengali, maharashtrian, tamilian, up'ite, etc etc...

There is a teaching in the movie Chak De India! when Shahrukh says that this is the selection for the Indian Womens' Hockey team and not a Chandigarh team... :-)

Take care and veto all my countrymen!!!

Long live India!!!

mera jahan...!!!

Life a teacher...

Well a friend of mine just brought this into the talk - "...everyone has their own share of experience and thats how we learn things..."
I was moved and said to myself, "Absolutely..."...

Let's see now... we were children of age 0, if I am not being wrong, when we were born... at time t=0... and then started to learn how to move our hands, legs, body and then started to walk, talk, run, study, etc. etc...

and therefore, life is always a learning curve.... and I would say till the very last moment... I mean even when we are dying (though I have not experienced that moment... :-) sorry for the pun... ) but we must be experiencing or learning something new that has actually never happened to us...

Because...

U just dont know what will happen the very next moment and u have to react to it and it is ur learning that takes u ahead..... and it is learning that makes u what u are...

Life... as I see it...

Life is not just u love someone and then u get together and that’s it, life is a big ball game where you should always think and try to hit the correct ball at the correct time with the correct effort so that it goes a long way and that on seeing it soar everyone who is involved should be a joyous lot and yes at the end of it all you should get the feeling of accomplishment, establishment and satisfaction.

Let the grass be green!!! - everywhere...

This one stems from the situations faced by us in almost anywhere where we go and try to ask for Help. I'd say the best example would be our offices... I mean why go far, look at our second home... and you'll know...

Ok so what am I trying to talk in here - well I said help, now what happens in 'HeLP'. Let's analyze...

Ok so we are in need of help or if I would say we need something from another human being, say our peers (as I have set the context to be a work place), and what do we get to hear??? Any guesses??? Well this should be so simple, ain't it... I bet you'd already be having the answer and would be saying that why is this guy writing so much... Ok so killing the suspense (as if there was any :)) we know that the reply would be,

1. "Hmmm... let me see what I can do and will get back to you."
2. "You see that's a nice point but we need to check with the ...."
3. "I would surely love to help you and hope you get that but we have certain ...."

Some possible Gerantiosus responses, as expected... But the fact is that no matter how simple the need would be but people, ahem peers (remember the context...), just don't say a yes or give a Green signal instantly. I know that there are a few who do so, but mark my words - few - and that is what makes the difference.

Now what this makes us believe is that the 'Grass is not that green on the other side...' but that's not true, simply because when we get a glimpse of things on the other side we say, "Wow. That's not what I'd expected. It's so bad of him to say like that and make me feel..." But this is the truth, many-a-times, right!

So all I'd say to such people who like to keep things in a vault - one which has the toughest combination possible and all laser security, just to keep a small key to the door - is to have no such vault and have transparency in their dealings so that we always end up in a win-win situation and hence keep the Grass as Green as possible... always... and everywhere...

Managers will be Managers !!!

This one is for all those who have gone to their managers/bosses and have come out saying, "He'll never understand me!"... and shook your head in dispair...

Well this happens to almost all of us, isn't it?

You would say a Yes or that's what I expect to hear from those reading this post as this is a very common phenomenon that happens to everyone. I might want to call it as - Gerantiosis (gerant is Italian for manager) - meaning a problem associated with anyone who gets the bug...

We all think and know that he is the last resort that you need to goto when it comes to pay check issues, salary hikes, domain issues, technology issues, blah blah blah... thinking that, 'The guys been there for long and he ought to know how things work', but as soon as we enter and open the mouth .............................................................................................. ok that's a long silence, but doesn't this happen?

I mean we open our mouth and tell our misery or whatever and expect a reply that would be oriented in the same direction but what hits us is something that is completely alien, to say the least.

We catch the bug, Gerantiosus and succumb to gerantiosis!

Problem is that all the time we are tought by them to be empathetic, to be polite, to be competitive, to be always on our toes so that the business does well but we dont get the same treatment from them, do we?

I am not trying to say that all the managers in the world are like this but I'd not be exaggerating if I put the figures to, lets say, 90% to say the least!

I know and have been in the company of some real human managers and have loved working under them and would wish and hope that sanity prevails and atleast we do not end up in the 90% share of the Gerantiosus pool but rather be the sane, polite, empathising dudes that we have always been...

What's important in Life???

Well again a question and an answer, but yes this one is a valid one too. This intended to tickle the guts of all us as we always never ever get to understand "What is important in Life?"

Well to start the post I would say that we all want certain things in life, viz. a decent job, money, house, food, friends, family, etc. (Plz. don't go by the ordering of the words here they are just written as they came to my mind ;-)) and so a human goes about achieving this right from his/her commencement of life/when he starts realising that he is a human.

Down the line we do forget what we want inside. What I am trying to get to is something that is an inner desire of a person (Believe me it is difficult to put in words too... I am trying my best here...). I am not talking about the saintly things of life but an innate demand from our soul, if you'd like to call it like that, or probably something that would make us feel that yes we have done our bit and achieved something.

Without beating around the bush, I would like to say that the most important thing in life is "Inner Happiness".

Now what is Inner in happiness?? Well that's a good question. The answer lies inside you. This happiness is something that makes you feel comfortable, secure, peaceful and happy. Don;t we all crave for this little thing so much that we think that maybe by earning more money we might get it, or by travelling, by becoming the King of the world, by ruling the unruly, by becoming a tyrant, by performing arts, by terror, by peace, by anything. But once we get into trying to find it we just forget that this small thing is of prime importance and give up to 'Maya' or the worldly desires.

Believe me a street-side vendor may not be the richest person but he might be happier than what you are right now.

So let's try to find that one thing that is the most important thing of life, Inner Happiness.

What drives a SE ???

I am writing this to bring forth my thoughts on what is the desire of a software engineer...
I think that i might be able to justify this as I am myself a SE working for a reputed company and have seen many things in my day-to-day job/life that I can take this up.

My thought stems from the fact that what do we actually want to get as a SE? Meaning after toiling hard through the college, all those 4 years, do we actually get what we always wanted or dreamt of? And if we do, then how many of us actually get it? And if so, then How???

Too many questions i suppose but lets face the facts...

I have been working for sometime in this field now and have taken up roles and responsibilities of all kinds. I am not saying that I am a guru in this or have been working all my life, but still I see people working day-in and day-out on a piece of work, sorry work-packet, that they don't really want or don't care for or are doing it because of sheer pressure and no where to go.

I had this one thing that happened. It's a support project and the people do the usual activities but suddenly one day a small 'work-packet' comes in which is of developing a small piece of code. This code is not a very serious one or important in terms of the application but it is still going to be a part of the app so... Ya, coming back to the topic... So this team gets real excited and starts questioning the folks as to what is the code for, what is the input, the output, how to go about it and all. There is a lot of commotion for what has come in. Believe me there is a lot of excitement too as they all want to lay their hands on it, no matter how small it is.

What I want to get to by saying all this is that - Development is a hunger and a inner desire of each SE. We keep doing all sorts of work and in the end get frustrated and either leave our jobs, go fishing, become a nomad, go to the hills, become a traveller (as one amasses a lot of ca$h) or goes and starts his own organisation! But deep down the desire is to break through the shackles of stupid mundane activities.

I believe a driving force for the SE is always, and will always be, Development. Thy can be in peace only if thou has new things to achieve.