Be the change

Sudhish's post truly kept me thinking and I have been compiling a list for the past week. Amazing what we can all do to play a part in the change. My list is by no means exhaustive and I hope people comment with more ideas.

Conserve energy. switch of lights/fan when it is not required. Take the stairs instead of the lift, at least when climbing down (less strenuous and anyway good for health). close taps tightly; don't let it drip.

Use telephones/mobile phones prudently. B'coz one can afford it doesn't mean one has to be on the phone all the time.Switch of your mobiles where they shouldn't be on, like temples n theatres (Maybe it is a cultural thing but we jus have to be 'connected' all the time)

Avoid waste. Be it food, fuel or water. Recycle what can be recycled. Be conscious of the impact of your actions on the environment. Conserve fuel. Car pool where possible.

Consume less. to rephrase...consume only as much as you need. And by consume I don't mean only food... electronics (esp mobile phones), cars, clothes, the whole lot. I am not advocating 'sannyasi' life. But seriously ppl! the latest mobile phone or the swankiest car is not a 'neccessity'. Think moderation.

Refrain from buying foreign brands paying thro the nose... jus for brand name and prestige associated with it. (where quality is the issue, sure! buy imported stuff but promote quality Indian brands).

Buy locally. Encourage the shops in your area. If your grocer sells bad stuff... stand up to him, tell him unless he improves his quality you will change shops. And if he does satisfy your requirments... stick to him. Loyalty pays.

Tolerance of everything is not a virtue. When you see something wrong, stand up against it. Make your point.(something I have great difficulty following but am making progress)

Believe in something passionately. The belief can be something as broad as seeing a developed India to something more specific, like Improving education leads to improved quality of life. But this belief will have to be a 'personal' one. Let us not have a 'herd'(aattu manthai) mentality.

Help others. You don't have to go out of the way to do it. Just what is possible and doesn't take too much of your time and energy. At least.

Be courteous. Say thanks/sorry even to strangers. Don't jump queues.

Everyday, make someone feel better. Be gentle to everyone. Appreciate others.

Respect elders. Listen to their advice. Take your own decisions but listen to them. The hallmark of Indian tradition is our family system where the elders nurture the young uns till they are settled and the youngsters take it from there and care for their elderly.

Spend more time with your family/friends. make new friends. Ultimately, good relationships is happiness. And happiness for all is our ultimate goal. (OK! 'all' is an impossibility... you get the idea, don't you?)

Respect women. A country that gives its women their due respect can never, repeat, never falter.

Unity is everything for us. Do not encourage factions.

Encourage good movies/books, especially 'original' Indian authors/moviemakers. (I consider the role Hollywood in particular and media in general has played in the Americanization of the world is huge and want our media to wake up and play its part in upholding Indian values and I don't mean only KarvaChauth and OmJaiJagadishHare)

Entrepreunership and employment generation pop up in my mind but I can't coin a proper sentence with it.

Accept that the change is slow. A drastic change is not only impossible it is also undesirable. Have patience.

Finally, Nationalism is good and so is national pride. But too much of anything is bad. Temper your patriotism. Being better than what we were should be our ideal and not to imitate another country or outdo them or even prove a point.
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One thing I haven't included but perhaps should have:

Don't work abroad. Do what you can for your country by being in it. (But I didn't know if staying in country and working for a MultiNational is any different from working for a MNC overseas. Also our expatriates seem to be doing a lot for the country).

I am confused if to be a part of the change, being in India is a necessity. I am sure the impact is maximum only if you do it being in the country. It is too easy to cosily sit abroad and talk of not spitting in the road or scolding someone who does that - b'coz you may not face such a person at all.

Right now I am just a student and am safe. Let us see if I can come back to India on completion as I hope to. That will be my challenge.

The least I can say now is, take responsibility for improving things in your country, being in it or being elsewhere.

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P.S. Yup! I did watch RDB. But more on it later.

A promise to keep, for Ridhish

This is for you, Ridhish!

Last weekend (Feb. 19th), we had invited a few friends over for dinner, the notorious Ridhish being one of them. While making small talk and the kind that good hosts and good guests do, we (Laxmikant and me) invited Rid (I am bored of typing your long name again n again) for a game of Table Tennis. Here, I need to mention that while I honed my TT skills (with Lax) all December we are nowhere near the league of Rid. Still, gamely we offered to play with him. I was the first to go and played incredibly well (or Rid was incredibly rusty). Anyway I scored 16 against his 21. (And anything over 5 points aginst him is considered win in our dictionary) Next in was Lax (we are lazy people... we can't go through half the life calling lengthy names) and this is where the fun began. Atleast for Rid. Lax, I am sure wasn't enjoying. Rid thrashed Lax 21-0. Zero guys. Talk about demoralising gameplay. Lax on his part was devastated. He was confident that 'if Ram can get 16 maybe I'll too' (we are almost equal).

Moral of the story: Don't invite Ridhish home for dinner and don't ask him to play TT with you. Kills appetite. And you may renounce playing Table Tennis 'ever'.

Review: The other side of outsourcing

Jus came across this Discovery-Times documentary by Thomas Friedman on the web - The other side of outsourcing. I should admit that I was a bit skeptical about it to start with. Thomas Friedman may have won three Pulitzers but it takes more than that to convince me. I do not subscribe to some of his views...mainly his McDonalds theory which effectively says that

no two countries that both had a McDonald's had fought a war against each other, since each got its McDonald's

his optimism that 'The world is flat' and Globalisation is the way to go. Added to that was the fact that I recently read One night at call center by Chetan Bhagat and was so bowled over by the narration and some of the points raised by Vrrooom in the book.

I was sure that 'The other side of outsourcing' was just going to show the tech-savvy Indian guy/gal talking in American accents about what a great life this was; throw in a lament about the loss of American jobs, and how 'cheap' it is for corporations to hire these highly qualified Indian youngsters (a statement like, "For 300 dollars a month you get professional TechSupport that wouldn't cost less than 3000 in America) and ofcourse the quintessential Indian thing to any westerner, cows in the middle of the road (a lot better if it is a bullock cart among speeding cars). Poverty stricken children with flies in their face would be extra (but thats if he wants another Pulitzer...yikes I am getting cynical).

Well! 'The other side of outsourcing' does all that. And goes on to do a bit more.

Social issues are discussed briefly. How the new found independence and 'disposable' income (whatever that is) changes lifestyles and the growing divide between the generations. Some reminders that India is becoming a mini-America and views on whether it is good or bad. A goldie from the documentary, "Humans are turned in to consumers and the world into a market place"

Quite contrary to my expectations Friedman actually talked about problems that India faces now and listens to views from people like Ramesh (Janagrahaa), someone from RSS, even anti-globalisation ones.

I would say it is a good watch, maybe even a must-see. Illuminating on some major concerns, something that in India policy makers and national leaders are less willing to accept.

I am impressed with Friedman's views

• for globalisation to work, it should reach everyone in the society; rich and poor, urban and rural
• globalisation cannot be at the expense of losing the cultural identity
• glocalisation is the way to go - globalisation with a local tang

P.S. I cannot but get angry when someone like Azim Premji says that America holds the edge in innovation and will continue to hold that. Why can't we be innovative? Or rather, what can we do to make sure that we are? I mean its not like I am anti-American. I have nothing against the common American. Corporations, greedy governments, imperialist policies... YUP! But I can't understand why India should bow and genuflect to America b'coz they can innovate and we can't (???).

Anywayz that is a little over my expertise. Maybe I misunderstand him and maybe my patriotism blinds me. Or maybe he is right.

Weekend...a long story

Had a hectic weekend. Well! Not exactly. It wasn't like I was sitting in a lab in the basement, not knowing whether the sun was out or not, whether it was time for lunch or tea... you get the idea, right?

This was totally different kind of hectic. Saturday morning, I heard my call from the Almighty - went to the Hindu Temple (what can I do, thats what they call it) at an unearthly hour of 8 and volunteered to help. You see! the temple had setup a stall in the International Food festival of the National Multicultural Festival and they wanted young energetic boys (hmmm! yup thats me) to help them running errands. Actually driving errands.

Spent an eternity chopping vegetables, a chore I wrought on myself. I chopped 78 capsicums and believe me I can't stand the sight of capsicums for atleast another year. Driving the cooked food to the stall at city centre wasn't a problem at all but finding parking was. Ended up parking far from the stall site and spilt dhall all over my T-shirt while lugging the ton load of it. A few more errands and I was on my own loitering around, catching a few European dances (Scottish was real good and so was Finnish), grabbing a bite at a Mexican stall (most other stalls had some form of meat and nothing but meat) On the whole, there were abt 100 stalls and food from as many countries. And almost all of Canberra (and many from out-of-state) attended it. Kept bumping into people I know all the time and repeated the 'World is small and Canberra is smaller' a zillion times (How innovative of me!)

Come evening, I went to help arrange a Bharathanatyam performance. Mainly sat in the counter, sold tickets, handed out Incredible India tourism brochures and more enjoyably took care of canteen (amazing Samosa and Tamarind chutney I have tasted in a long long time). Met lot of maama, maamis that I felt so totally at home...infact it was more like a kutcheri in Mylapore.

Sunday was no less hectic (hhhehhhhe). After waking up at 10, a movie marathon... 'Bride and Prejudice', 'Bend it like beckham' and 'Bollywood Hollywood'. Only BILB was good (even though I have watched a few times before).

In the evening went to a Vishnu Sahasranama Parayanam at a pious Brahmin's house. They were chanting it five times....dunno why. Am doing OK with the sahasranamam now but was astonished to see almost everyone there chant it without seeing the book.

Ofcourse the highlight was the super dinner there. Ven pongal, puliyodharai, chakkarapongal, saadham, morekuzhambu, sambhar, rasam, thayir sadham, appalam, three types of sundal, brocolli curry, salad, kesari, etc. etc. Well! I can't even stop drooling.

Back to experiments n lab work today. poof... another weekend gone. Atleast I earned some punya. And had heaps of fun.

The Dot

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Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

Quote from Carl Sagan

Cricket

I follow the cricket series in Pakistan as best as I can, all thanks to Rediff. Needless to say, I was very disappointed with the way the series was shaping. The first two were comic capers and the third had some promise in it.

And what a beginning it had. The bowlers had nothing but to twiddle thumbs in Lahore and Faisalabad and here a hat-trick in the first over. Who could have imagined???

Anyway, the Pakistanis bowled just as well and no team ended up the better after the first innings. The Pakistani batsmen though smarted soon and played a stupendous innings and set a tough target for India. Tough, but not unattainable.

And this is where we started falling.

I reckon batsmen have simply forgotten the art of playing test match cricket. Well!, I am not a puritan or anything and would rather watch the highlights than watch 13 players trod along all day meaninglessly. But every single batsmen seemed to play like they had a train to catch...forgive the cliche... OK! like they had to pee immediately.

Why the hurry? 120 odd overs, 570 runs... fine! you need to score over 4 runs an over if you want the match to have a result. But what the heck! you were four down for 74. Do you really think you were playing for a win? Yuvraj maybe a great one-day batsman but if he needs to continue playing tests he should forget strike rate of 85.

Yeah Yeah!!! Indians were outplayed and they were brave to play for a result and played some attacking cricket. But the greatness of test cricket is in the dodge; clawing the opponent, denying him the joy of victory, frustrating him, make him cry, lose all hope. (Remember Jimmy (P)Adams in the famed Mohali test). Saving a test is great feat, perhaps even greater than a blitzkreig 100.

Down! Down! to quick scoring. Jeez! Never thought that would come from my mouth.