India - The Ailing Nation

The nation's capitol was tested yet again and yet again....... it failed. The heart of India lies ailing. Delhi blasts have shattered not just people's faith in the nation's security but also the trust in the men who bear the task of protecting the nation and its citizens. People in India have been living with terrorism so long that it has become a part of our daily life. It doesn't surprise or amaze any of us anymore. The question to be asked here is, why has the common man accepted this most outrageous of human behaviors? is it because people have started to believe terrorism as justified or is it because the security agencies in India have proven to be so useless that it is no longer a surprise that they cannot stop these blasts from happening. Why in a country, whose foundation was laid on AHINSA or non-violence, HINSA or violence has become a trade? Why has the government yet again failed to protect us?

It was a similar situation 60 years ago. One country had used terror to take away our freedom, but taking one of the oldest and biggest civilizations in the world for granted had proven very expensive for them. When deprived of their freedom, Indians back then had marched against one of the biggest empires in the world, with courage and resistance against the terror of the British and took back their freedom. Today the situation is very similar, the only difference being that the enemy back then was a known face but today it hides as a thought in the mind of men not very different from you or me. This enemy like the previous one has taken away our freedom. No place can be considered as safe anymore, bus, train, airplane, hospitals, even a children's playground has turned into a battlefield. People no longer have the freedom to move carelessly in their own country without the fear of getting killed, mothers are no longer care free to send their kids to school without any worry or hesitation. We are back in the same old days of slavery, living in fear, the freedom for which our forefathers paid with their lives has again been snatched from us. Who is to be blamed for this? the simple answer is - it is us, "the citizens of India", who are responsible for this state of misery. Amidst the busy schedule of life, people have forgotten that earning money and feeding one's family alone is not enough for survival, that one of the key parts of the definition of survival is to live FREELY without any fear or care and that freedom was earned by our forefathers and it is our right and obligation to guard and protect it, it wasn't given to us on a silver platter back then and it will not be handed to us like a bouquet now. Nothing in this world worth having comes easy or free, it has to be earned and fought for and it is time we - the people of the nation - start understanding the value of our freedom and the importance of fighting for it. Its about time that we and our leaders re-organize our priorities and carry out the duties in the fight against terrorism.

Today's headlines were filed with news that the government is planning to come up with a new position in the cabinet called the "Terror Minister" to deal with internal security issues. Without doubt this is one step worth mentioning the government has taken, but does it have the right motive or direction? Terrorism has spread across the world like cancer, and governments all around have taken oath and are trying their best to surgically remove terrorism by its roots. But down this road of battle against the biggest enemy of mankind, governments all around the world have forgotten the actual enemy they are fighting against. The issue at hand is Terrorism and not the Terrorists. Human mind has the potential to be as brilliant as Einstein or as corrupt as Osama. The fight against terrorism is the fight against the mind, the thoughts that make a man to choose to become an animal, its these thoughts that need to be cleared, its the cause leading to terrorism that needs to be erased. This fight cannot be carried out alone by our leaders, help is invariably vital, the help from people, the help from the common man. But how will a common man, without the skill or expertise of warfare be able to put up a fight against an enemy which he/she cannot see? though this being a question worth a discussion and one with the potential to start a debate, has the most easiest of answers - KNOWLEDGE. The power of education and literacy helps a man not only with the basic needs of survival but also enables him to understand right and wrong. Anyone with a common sense can differentiate good from bad but to choose a more right option from 2 right options and a less wrong option from 2 wrong options can only be taught by education. Knowledge has the potential to equip a man with the skill to evaluate, analyze and then decide the better path. It is the ultimate weapon against all enemies, seen and unseen. In our world were humanity has almost vanished, were the mind of young men has become so feeble that it is as easy to mend it as a straw, it is our responsibility to educate our brothers and sisters to unite and use knowledge to fight against the CAUSE of terrorism and not the terrorists. If we can carry this out, take the necessary steps and never stop trying then maybe.... maybe, one day we will celebrate a new independence day and that day terrorism will no longer be a topic of talk shows but a chapter in long forgotten history books.      

that’s the way the COOKIE crumbled……

It was a sunny beach, cool breeze on my face, a fruity drink in my hand, golden sand everywhere and a beautiful voluptuous girl lying on the next bench. She had the most beautiful eyes and was looking at me. ‘Why in the name of hell is she looking at ME?’ was my first thought, but then she smiled and said “Dude! Conference room in 5”. I woke up and found my self back in the same old place, workstation 14, stale air from the central air conditioner, a cup of coffee gone cold sitting in front of me and a picture of a beautiful news anchor pinned next to my monitor. It was 25 minutes past nine and time for the conference with folks sitting half way across the world in San Diego. The repeated “BING!” from the meeting reminder on my monitor made me standup, I rubbed my eyes , sipped the old coffee, made a weird face from the taste and walked through the zigzag corridors towards the conference room. It wasn’t a walk of glory, it wasn’t a walk of fame, it was more like a walk the janitor takes towards the washroom to clean someone else’s crap.

This was the last day of the first week of my very first job. After 4 years of wonderful college spent learning nothing but how to have fun and two months of worthless training from amazing trainers who practically spent the entire class playing table tennis with the trainees, the actual office was nothing close to what all of us had imagined. Extinct models of Pcs, weirdly uncomfortable chairs, low false ceiling and a cube shared by three other people weren’t the best of luxury we newbies had hoped for. It wasn’t the best of working conditions but working in an MNC, which is looking for cost-cuttings by employing low-salaried Indians, has its own drawbacks. However, the biggest disappointment wasn’t the quality of the environment but the quality of work. There were my training batch-mates working hard to develop tools and firmware that would help their team as well as off-shore partners, and then there was me, fixing issues in code (which neither did we understand nor did anyone tried to train us to understand) developed by off-shore partners, clearing up someone else’s mess and trying to make it look like a job that had the potential to save the world.

I sat there in the conference room thinking “This has got to be the most disgraceful job anyone has ever done……”. My manager on the other hand was busy smiling and trying to pickup everyone’s moral by sharing the appreciation mails sent by the partners to inform that I was doing a wonderful job and so they had decided to give me an award. “Well that’s great!”, I thought “I am so efficient at this that they have named me the best janitor of the team, the award could as well have been titled HALL OF FAME OF JANITORS – in appreciation of your extraordinary efforts to cleanup the crap not just in the pot but that sprayed across the walls too….”. I had always been told that one should not bitch about their work; work is worship and that everyone should carry it out with honor and dignity and so I suppressed my disgust and accepted the award with an over-the-moon-with-joy look on my face. I took my seat feeling depressed and disappointed; little did I know that the next three years in the same company would change my life completely, I would start understanding the fact that you could never have an ideal atmosphere for work, not everyone at work is a friend and smart work even the most worthless type can be more rewarding than any kind of hard work. But back in the past, I sat in that conference room completely unaware of what the coming years had in-store for me, wondering how long I would last here and thinking “Well, I guess that’s the way the cookie crumbles…….”