Uniqueness of India

India is a unique country. Notwithstanding its numerous problems there are plenty of advantages of living in India.

1. It is a land of plentiful sunshine. Sunshine which is our primary source of energy is abundant here and most of us wake up to a cheerfully shining sun outside our windows. Imagine the days when the bleak and gloomy weather outside makes us feel depressed as well.
2.  It has the most beautiful and magnificient beaches and hill stations. Being a peninsula itis surrounded on three sides by oceans and seas, the Indian ocean, the Bay of Bengal Andthe arabian sea cover the coastline of India. Due to this unique geography India has some of the most amazing beaches in the world and the advantage that one can bathe almost the whole year round. Puri beach has the most magnificient waves which are so huge sometimes to be almost like mini tsunami. The coastline covers a range of 7500km which is more than the distance from Kolkata to London.

3. India is straddled by the Himalayan mountain ranges, the longest, highest, most pictureesque mountain ranges in the world to the north. They act as a natural barrier to the cold winds flowing in from Siberia and Afghanistan. The highest peaks like Everest and Kanchanjunga are found here.  The mountains cover a stretch of around 2000 km. The mountains are the birthplace of the most sacred rivers of India - Ganga, Yamuna , and Brahmaputra. Some of the most beautiful places in the world nestle in the hills and mountains like Kashmir, Shimla, Shillong, Darjeeling and Kulu.

4. Apart from seas and mountains there are some beautiful islands to visit here like Andaman and Lakshwadeep. There is also Thar desert in Rajasthan and The Sunderbans in Bengal both very distinct and unique features.

5. The people of India are also unique and varied. From the almost foreign fairness of people from Kashmir, there are dark skinned people of South India. Home to twenty different languages and 200 dialects, study of the culture and customs of India can turn up to be an anthropologist’s dream.

6. This is a place where you will never get bored as there are too many things to do and see than can be covered in a single lifetime.

Problems faced in India

Some common  problems in India

1. Population
2. Unemployment
3. Energy scarcity in many regions
4. Garbage & its disposal
5. Competition for jobs and its accompanying stress which burden school children and adults alike.
6.  Children have to carry bags filled with schoolbooks weighing as much as 5kg to school everyday which adds to their work load.
7.  Very bad state of public transport in states like Maharastra
8.  The stress and pace of everyday life leaves no time to enjoy life.
9. Rote learning based education system which makes going to school a bore
10.  Unfulfilling jobs which makes going to office a bore
11. Insipid and uninspiring serials on TV which make watching TV a bore
12. Very few good authors with the same ole stories which makes reading books a bore

The views expressed here are personal and in no way try to demean anyone.

One line answers

The news in yesterday’s newspapers was that PM had decided to cut down the number of policemen required to secure his travel route when a forthright police constable told him that policemen were kept so busy on bandobust duty of vips that they had no time for other activities referring to pm’s swach bharat campaign of keeping the thana clean. This short, honest and succinct answer made me think about one line answers as compared to long winded verbose and lengthy replies which are inherently diplomatic and tends towards dishonesty. A long and lengthy explanation would have been polite, for example if the constable had replied that inspite of their trying to keep the premises clean the people who came to the station had habit of spitting, dropped empty packets and polythenes which dirtied the surroundings that too would be correct but only half the truth. One line answers are seldom appreciated by the person asking the question. This is because they are either yes or no replies. If reply is positive which is most often not the case as then the question itself would be too easy or facile. If the reply is negative which is most often the case, it leaves little room for manoeuvre to the replier or the questioner. If the answer is fuzzy , it gives the replier a chance to modify, amend or firm up his reply when he gets his next question, depending on the tenor of the next question and the attitude of the person asking it. Generally a person who gives one line replies can fall in three categories only
1. When a superior is replying to a subordinate’s question, or a stranger asking questions of another will not think it necessary to qualify his answers.
2. A person who replies in monosyllables is considered to be dim witted, dull, apathetic or suicidal
3. A person who is honest and egoistic enough to believe that he need not qualify his answer as it is the truth.
So it is very obvious that most of us give long replies when asked troublesome or tricky questions as it has the advantage of politeness, tact,and partial correctness.

I wonder what consequences the police constable will now be facing from his superiors over his hasty reply.

My theory about unique ideas & their popularity

My theory of unique ideas and their universal popularity is as follows
1) The idea, concept or product should have intrinsic value, ie it should have  true goodness to be valuable. For exp a book such as Pride and Prejudice is so great that even 400 years later people of the 21st century are still reading it.

2) Truly great ideas are extremely simple. But the simplicity is so obvious that people who are generally used to complexity and grandiose rhetoric as a means to elicit awe cannot appreciate the truly simple. We all have a childlike nature innate within us which is curious, inquisitive, empathetic and simple. As the child is subjected to outside influences and experiences it learns to cover its intrinsically honest and simple outlook with guile and subterferge to fit into a complex world.

3) A great idea would require little or no advertisement. If the product or idea is great word of mouth should be enough to make it popular.

4) Radically new , unique ideas are few and far between. Generally looking at the large pool of human resources and increasing knowledge and literacy levels it would seem that the number of radical new ideas would be plentiful. But it seems that the 19th and 20th centuries had the best share in generation of new ideas as well as the greatest scientific brains and technology development. The age of industrial revolution, the age of Newton, Einstein , Darwin and the age of quantum mechanics was a slice of time when the generation of new and unique ideas was phenomenal. After this golden era there is quite a hiatus in the generation of new and radical ideas among scientists. In today’s world there is hardly any scientist , or author or even a revolutionary new idea which is worth writing about.











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Chess Game

The origin of the game of chess must be very interesting. It must have been a very astute mind which thought up this game and its intricate rules. We can infer that chess might have come from the numerous wars that were fought at the time by warring sides. So in chess the two sides black and white with their king, queen, horse, elephant,knights and soldiers. To make the battle equal both sides have the same number of pieces and similar rules for each piece. The outcome of the game then depends on the skill of the player, all othsr things being the same. It is a great tactical game, a game where you can learn some of the starting rules of office politics
1. The king is of prime importance. If the king is sacrificed the game is lost. The king can be symbolic of one’s most imp project or boss in the office. To protect the king till the end is the prime objective.
2. Pawns are the foot soldiers, the most in number, also the ones with the least power, who are the ones whose heads must roll most often. A pawn who survives the heat of battle can get transformed into the queen if it reaches the last line of squares in the chessboard. As an example from history we have the slave king Illtutmish who came originally from a slavedynasty but became king due to his fighting abilities.
3. The knight is the only piece which can jump over another piece. This makes it a most useful piece in the initial phase where the chessboard is crowded.
4. In terms of movement the queen is the most powerful piece. It can move diagonally or straightways . Losing the queen is as good as losing the game.

The game of politics in the office is similar to chess moves in many ways.
The king or boss is always right &to be protected under all circumstances. Not pleasing the boss means kissing promotions and projects goodbye. Some aspects differ in from the conventional game
 In chess the home team and the opponent are clearly defined. Not so in office politics where people change colours all the time. The boss too has to think about who to pull up and whom to pull down, otherwise the person he promotes may take away his job one day.

Oh Calcutta!

Summer in Calcutta is unbearable! It is impossibly hot, humid & sultry. We came to Calcutta on 29th April. Although the sun’s intensity is same as it is in Pune, the humidity makes the weather worse. It is hot, sticky and sometimes the air is still and unmoving, so not a particle of sweat can evaporate, leading to a close, airless feeling. In such an atmosphere, I could really bless the inventors of air conditioning and pity the fate of hapless people who had to face the harsh heat of the afternoon sun.
       The heat changes the character of people too, making them irritable and angry, flaring up at the least of provocations. Yesterday was impossibly hot- in the afternoon when I entered the kitchen it felt like an oven.
       Today morning the weather has changed. A cool fresh breeze is blowing which is not only refreshing but magical. I was wondering how the hot air of the previous day could so suddenly give way to this sort of cool refreshing breeze. Within a few short hours the hot stale air was swept away by the force of the cool new wind giving respite to oppressed men ,animals and plants. The winds of change. The winds of revolution and new beginnings. How sweet it feels. Hope this fresh new weather of Calcutta lasts for a long while, not merely till morning gives way to afternoon.

Makeover of showcase

I thought my showcase looked really awful and disorganised. So I did a little rearrangement & here are the before and after pics! A great change.

The showcase before the rearrangement

The showcase after the rearrangement. Looks neater now.

This is my kitchen, which really needs a makeover

This is my Drawing Room, which looks nice, with the croton growing well.