Castes and Marriage

First thing, I personally do not believe in the caste system and secondly, I have not written this blog because I am having any thoughts of marriage. It's just that I recalled a conversation I had with a dear friend, which made me think and hence, write...
A few days ago, I was having a casual chat with a friend; and the topic of castes and marriage came up. I realized that she was too much concerned about castes, and I reacted, "Why do you girls give so much importance to the caste of the guy you are thinking about?"
Then she explained, "Yaar, it's very easy for you guys to say this, because you don't have to go and live with the girl's family, but a girl has to. She has to adjust with the people, the new house, the new environment i.e. the new lifestyle. The more different it is from her's, the more difficult it will be for her."
Now, there are somethings that are right infront of your eyes for years, but you never know that they exist. The difference in lifestyle of various people around me, was one such thing for me.
And now that someone pointed that for me, I saw it. I understood the significance of the term 'diversity' in the phrase, 'Unity in Diversity'. There was indeed a lot of diversity among the people around me. The environment in everybody's home is different, the type of food eaten is different, the way weekends are celebrated is different, etc etc.
Obviously, this diversity is decreasing as the generation is advancing, but it still exists. And it is significant enough, that if I am asked to live according to someone else's lifestyle for more that a week, it will drive me mad.
And this difference is greater if the castes are different. Please note that the difference here is not negative or positive, its just a difference of style and anyone will get mad if he is asked to live life in someone else's style.
So now I understand how difficult it must be for a girl to adjust to the new surroundings. Thats why probably, our elders insist on intra-caste marriages, cause they had gone through all this, and obviously want to make the path easier for us...
P.S. : I do not have any personal opinions on importance of castes in marriage, I was just trying to find the logic behind elders insistence on intra-caste marriages.

Where's the justice?

I have been invisible for a long time, trying to ignore my commitment to blog, under the pretext of being busy. But something i read today just cant be ignored under any pretext.

Remember the age old movies of 60s or 70s... The theme being that of a rich, powerful Thakur raping an innocent girl from a poor family. The family so poor and weak compared to Thakur that they cant even get justice for their poor girl. Harassed by the society (the society is equally at fault, because instead of punishing the Thakur, it harasses the poor girl), the poor girl commits suicide. Her father/mother/brother/some relative keeps fighting to get justice for her for like ages. Years go by, the Thakur becomes old. Then some hero/heroine enters, mobilises the media and wheels of system, and thus helps get the poor relative justice for the poor girl, who's long dead. The movies ends in a happy note, claiming that none can escape justice.

Well, I always thought that this was a story of Old India, that nothing of this sort happens today, that India has come a long way and everyone gets justice...

But then, I read about the Richika Girhotra's case in today's news that made me realise how even today, India is like the one depicted in those movies...

A girl, Ruchika, was molested by a DGP, Rathore, in Haryana. The court ruled its decision by announcing punishment to the DGP and the girl got her justice. Looks fine, doesn't it?

Here are some facts:
1. The molestation happened 19 years ago.
2. The poor girl committed suicide 3 years later, obviously frustrated at not getting justice and probably being harassed by our society which is no less than a culprit by any means.
3. The punishment that the DGP got after these years is a 6 months jail and fine of Rs. 1000/-.

Now please someone tell me, from what angle is this a justice? A mere 6 months of jail and a pittance of fine... against the life of a the poor girl...

And what punishment to those, whose duty it was to deliver the justice on time? Nothing... If the DGP molested the girl, the people responsible for the delay actually killed her. Reports are that the DGP himself used his position to cover the matter as far as possible. He harassed the family and the related people for 19 years. Shouldn't there be some inquiry into this matter?

I think no... because if this simple delivery of justice took 19 years, no one can guess how long the inquiry into the complicated matter would take...

As a writer to this article, i am supposed to give some probable solution or recommendation to improve the system. But sorry, i just cant think of any... If any of u do, please post it....

I know this is a little far fetched, but if we can come up to any conclusions, any solid solution, we can mail it to our government and hope for the best. That's the least we can do...

Mis-management

Sorry friends, I have not been able to post anything from quite a long time. Actually i would say i was a victim of mismanagement.

My office timings had been increased, and including commuting time, I spent almost 13 hrs daily, that 6 days a week made almost 78 hrs a week.

The management of my company had decided to extend the work time so that the engineers can spend more time on the site. According to them, this will help increase the project speed and hence meet the project deadline.

Now why i call this a mismanagement is that the management of this company which hardly comes to the job area, has, i think, not looked into the real problem for the delay.

The reason the delays are occurring is not lack of engineers on site, but lack of labours. So if they dont increase the workers, what the hell is going to happen by making engineers to stay more (i m not saying work more, coz the work is hardly of 5 hrs a day).

In fact the engineers are in excess. Can u imagine what is the ratio of engineers to workers (the term engineers here include managers, engineers, contractors, supervisors.... infact all those who dont do the work but monitor the work...)

Once i went for a safety meeting of an area. All the people related to that area were present. Mechanical team, civil team, electrical team, safety team, contractors and of course the most important workers. The crowd consisted of around 40 people and only 5-6 of the where workers.

That means 7-8 engineers per worker.... that means, 1 person works and rest (mis) guide him. What happens most of the time is the workers sit idle because the so called guides keep fighting amongst themselves on the way to do the work... and of course the blame game...

Infact I have found that most of the work is carried out during after hours, when only engineers and 2-3 contractors are present on the whole site. It seems that less engineers cause less disturbance to the workers and more efficient work.

That means, if the engineers time is increased, the project may decrease instead of increasing....

Now, whose going to explain the management this???

Alma Mater

Once while I was in school, I was going through someone's year book. I came upon a term, 'alma mater'... Someone had refered to his college as alma mater...

It was a new term for me. So I looked up into dictionary and found out that alma mater in latin means nourishing mother...

I laughed... Who can call his school or college as his alma mater.

Then, I went to my college, NIT Hamirpur. I not just spent my 4 years there, but I lived them. I enjoyed them. And now I know why that person had called his college his 'alma mater'....

Monetize your ideas...

I learned a very important lesson yesterday... Monetizing....

Monetizing in simple terms is how to make money.... Either u have an idea or a specific skill or any object; n u have to make money from it...

A very popular example for this would be google. Before google, there were a lot of search engines, but searches were done as free services. Then google came and it taught the world that money can be made simply from conducting searches.

Monetizing is one of the most impostant skill one should have, if he wants to be a successful entrepreneur. Enterprise needs money to survive, like humans need food and water. A lot of people have ideas, very good one infact. The world is full of intelligent people, but very few know how to monetize them.

Let me give another example of excellent monetizing. An IIM grad started a firm in ahmedabad. They went from house to house and collected left over food. The food was then distributed to poor people at the price of Rs.1 per person. What an idea to do social service and save waste at the same time, one would think.... But the firm is not just doing social work, it is also making money in the process. Now one would think, how much can one earn by collecting one-one rupee.

The firm's been doing this work from 4 years. Can u imagine what was the turnover of the firm for this year? It ran into crores.... Who would have thought that!!!

Surely monetizing is a very important thing. Atleast for me, it's the first thing in my to do list.

Its raining... Its raining...

It was 5.55 pm yesterday. I was in my bus, back from office. It was about to reach my stop. My building is about half km from the stop.

I looked outside the window. It was raining heavily. As one of my friends would say, it was raining cats and dogs. But still i felt very pleasant by looking at the pouring water, flooded streets... My heart longed to be outside and get wet like everything else outside.

I had a raincoat with me and no bag. I checked my pockets: mobile, headphones, wallet, keys, handkerchief. I put the mobile, headphones n wallet in the raincoat pocket, n folded it nicely to ensure no water can get inside and waited.

The bus reached my stop, people hurried to wear their raincoats. I calmly got down with the folded raincoat in my hand, and felt the cold showers... What a soothing experience... Stood there until i was drenched to the skin. People were looking curiously... A man getting wet in the rain, with a raincoat in his hand... I smiled... Rain makes me happy...

I remembered i had very little money with me. Went to an atm, took out what i would need for the next week. Then i went for a food-shopping... Sitting by the window and eating something hot, is one the best thing one can do when it's raining... I bought a variety of stuff: manchurian, dhokla, chocolates (they are not hot, but who cares... I love them...) I also bought some stuff i would need for cooking my dinner...

Having got everything i would need, I walked towards my building. The streets were almost empty. When i reached, our chowkidar looked at me, then looked at my raincoat and gave me a puzzled look. I just smiled, he understood...

I reached my floor, that is the top one, opened the door, threw all the stuff, took off my shoes, then came out and locked the door. Then i ran to the terrace and felt the showers again...
Ohooooo..... Cold water and cool breeze....

Did i mentioned, there's the Tapi river flowing about 3 kms from my building and that the sea coast is just about 10 km from where i was standing... Though none of them are visible from my terrace due the massive concrete jungle, but it sure cant stop the breeze...

Cool breeze keep flowing through out the day. Add to that the rain showers n it becomes a deadly combination... Lovely deadly i mean... I wanted to dance and jump, but the neighbouring aunty was already staring at me as if i was nuts. If i would have danced, that would. So i just stood there enjoying the rains for about half an hour. Came back to my apartment, dried myself and wrote this blog....

P.S. If you are thinking of trying this yourself, make sure you take a bath afterwards, to avoid any itching after-effects. Also keep yourself warm to avoid cold... I didn't and now that i have caught cold, i think i should have...

The Hence's, the Because's & the Inspite of's

So here i m... In my company's bus again... Arguing with a fool...
Yes, i remember the saying, 'don't argue with a fool. He brings you down to his level and beats you with his experience.' but probably i m fool too.

So when we were discussing a very complicated matter (something i think only fools can discuss, as did we..), i came up with three groups of people who work in this company- the hence's, the because's and the inspite of's.

The hence's are the people about who can be described as 'They are fools, hence they are in this company.' I think that sentence says all that i want to say.

The because's are the people who were not fools when they joined the company, but over the valuable time they spent in the company, the hence's influenced them and converted them into fools. So about because's, we can say, 'They are fools because they are in this company.'

Now the last come the 'inspite of's.' These are the ones who were not fools when they joined the company and are not fools even today. I m not talking about those who are newcomers and hence not influenced enough yet, they will take time to chose a group. But i m talking of those who have spent years in this company and yet have retained their wisdom. I have found just 2-3 of them, but all of them at very powerful positions. How they managed to stay wise is a mystery i have to solve... But they are the ones we can describe as, 'They are not fools inspite of being in this company'.

About me, i have not decided yet which category i want to be in... The because's or the inspite of's....

P.S. I think everyone is born with enough potential and a choice: Be a part of the crowd and become a 'Because' OR fight his way out of the crowd and become an 'Inspite of'.