i dont think he will win

i have never thought about anything but myself, so thinking about a whole city is really outta my league. but until someone pays me to shutup, i will keep talking :P

so the question really is, can a educated, highly qualified honest man with a will to improve the city and its administration, win an election? the obvious answer is no. the reasons are obvious too...i and you wont vote.

but i feel sorry for people of Pune this time around. there nearest and dearest excuses have been mercilessly taken away from them.

Punekar: my vote wont make a difference. actual elections are won/lost in the slums.
Stupid Reality: more than 60% of pune's registered voters are from the educated middle class. they are actually (and i still dont believe it) in the majority.

P: fine! but who do we vote for? all are corrupt.
SR: theres this dude, arun bhatia (u might find the name familiar, same dude who broke down all illegal constructions, when commissioner of PMC, was later transferred...obviously :P). read the excerpt from his website below. proves he was not liked by the system. there is no way you can put him in the "all are corrupt" basket

"And so in 26 years of service (excluding the training period and service in the United Nations), Bhatia was removed from his post (transferred) 26 times. "

P: :( even if he wins, what can 1 MP do?
SR: he has plans. but forget everything else, if he wins it will just prove that a good guy with extremely limited funds and no gundaas, can still win a lok sabha seat in india. which will be a revolution in itself.

P: (dodge this u punk!) is desh ka kuch nahi hone wala. kyon time waste kare?
SR: ok. u win.

SR: here is his video, watch it if you have the whole 10 mins to spare.
P: isnt he expecting too much frm us? cant watch katrina for tht long, and she is the hottest!!

i dont know which side i am on. to vote or not to. but one things for sure, if i am not going to vote in this LS polls, i will need to be very creative and find a good excuse. cant hide behind those good ol ones anymore :( hmmm...something on these lines perhaps :P

SR: why dont u vote?
P: i am a believer of individual action (SR: mostly cus no one else listens to me). you tell me, for my vote to be worth anything, 4 lakh more have to vote for the same guy? that doesn't work for me, too far fetched. doesn't make me feel special. i would rather give 10 bucks to a beggar, get the instant gratification and be done with my social responsibilities. (SR: if you have no sense of social responsibility..u r the luckiest)

but if u r gonna take the brave step of being non-lazy non-pessimistic, and risk being found looking stupid standing in a line at a polling booth, then remember these dates.

27th March: last date for voter registration
23th April: showtime

dont blame pakistan..try blaming the washing machine

NOTE: i dont have a solution to the problem of terrorism. if you are looking for something concrete to do, read no further :)

dont blame pakistan...

mostly 'cause it is not a country. just like india is not a country.

pak is looking like it is taken over by extremists (read ISI/Army/JeM/LeT) and india is most definitely taken over by corruption. a nation is some place where the will of the common people is expressed, atleast to a certain measure in the will of the administration. is this true about our two countries? i.e. does the pak govt look serious in its efforts to curb terrorism, and does the indian govt look serious in its efforts to curb corruption? and these are not some fringe issues. they are central to the safety and well being of commoners in both countries.

i would say the US is a country. most of its citizens were against the war in iraq and that has cost its president and his party dearly. there is atleast a hope that the new guy will deliver closer to the peoples expectations.

so if we are not a country then what are we? just a billion people without an identity? what happens to our patriotism. what happens to all those songs and speeches that we were made to recite as kids and are imprinted on our minds? this whole idea of belonging to a "country" 'cause you were born in it, feels much like the caste system. you get your nationality by birth, you are taught that your country is the greatest and that all others are fine but not as great as yours. so when there is a conflict of interests, anything (even killing!) is fair if it is done in the name of your country (replace country with god and you have..viola jihad!).

believing in god and country is great, do it by all means. maybe a long long time ago these institutions were really unadulterated, so people got used to believing them easily. but in todays day and age are priests and politicians the most charitable people around?
problem here is that we outsource our thinking. i dont want to get into the nitty-gritties of issues. i just want a notion which everyone accepts to be sacred so that i can make my peace with the stupid questions (how can we help end terrorism) and merrily focus on the important ones (how will i get a pay hike :P).

we need to move from geographical location based loyalties to value based loyalties. it would mean a paradigm shift in todays political order. and i dont see it coming any time soon, 'cause for that to happen most humans will have to think for themselves :P

gandhiji once said "the only tyrant i accept in this world is the still small voice within me" :)


try blaming the washing machine....

"we accept the reality of the world that we are presented with" - The Truman Show

brainwashing is not very hard. all it takes is a clever and systematic control of information. you take away that control and the machine stops. if we want to stop this hate between india and pakistan and the grass root level, all that needs to be done is let the media in. allow all indian channels private and public to be seen in pakistan and vica-versa. i am sure there will be a lot of propaganda channels too, but who cares? most extremists are that way because they have never seen the other side. you show them that and you give them atleast something to think about.

it is hard to believe that whole of pakistan hates india and visa-versa. sure we are not the best of allies but the khunnas sud be limited to cricket matches and hockey games. i dont think the common man is really very different in the two countries. so when there are blasts in mumbai why do we feel that we should retaliate against pakistan? its because its engraved in our brains that the basic unit for war is a country. and that is the exact wrong assumption on which terrorism thrives. we need to change the unit of war to organizations, not countries.

once pakistanis realize that most hindus are peaceful and do not hate muslims, and indians see that most pakistanis are peaceful too, then we will we able to focus on the real enemy

until then...ignorance will take its toll

enemy like

NOTE: i have not been oppressed nor have i been an oppressor. i have no insight whatsoever into why terrorists do what they do or how it feels to be a victim of their acts. wht follows is a purely theoretical/intellectual quest to understand/comprehend this phenomenon.

human race has always found creative ways of settling disputes, from verbal abuse (this has established itself both as an exact art and as a separate branch of linguistics) to homicides and from gandhigiri to genocides. gandhigiri being a topic for another day...

so can you kill a human being? well, if you eat chicken you are already close to killing animals for your need/pleasure. human beings are just animals who look a lot like you :P ok on a serious note...humans have been killing each other for centuries now. from organized killings like wars and terrorist attacks to individually motivated actions like assassinations and murders.

individual killers are some what simple and easy to understand. the good old "i dont like you i will kill you" school of thought. they are stupid idiots agreed, but not pertinacious (at least not after getting caught :P) lets leave them to their fate...

conventional wars have always been a necessary evil. but it has evolved from jungle style herd clashes (all weak must die) to more civilized stuff like the geneva convention (declaration of war, acceptance of surrender, humane treatment (relatively :P) for prisoners of war, etc). its well accepted as a fact of life now (like we have police for individual criminals we have the army for criminal countries :P). lets move on to the new kid on the block...

why would anyone become a terrorist? some say they are a bunch of crazy people who come out of some god forsaken place on this planet and trouble us just because they are jealous of us. well if thats the case life ould be very simple.
but going by the saying that your terrorist is someone's freedom fighter, let us assume that terrorists are a product of long periods of oppression by a disproportionately stronger adversary. he (he=he/she henceforth) cannot fight a conventional war and he cant be expected to tolerate atrocities either, so he goes out and kills someone "enemy like".
that is a very dangerous abstraction and the fundamental flaw in the doctrine of terrorism, if there is such a thing. it represents the urge to take revenge without the restraint of understanding the problem. but unfortunately its a very practical one.
if my family is killed in a terrorist attack carried out by "a" person of some nationality/religion do you really expect me to find "that" particular person and kill him back? no its very difficult to do that, its much easier to just kill a bunch of hapless guys with the same nationality/religion. yes, the nationality/religion is very important, just killing random people might let out the pent up anger, but it wont give that sweet sense of revenge!

but if you really think about it, isnt it like punishing my neighbor for my mistakes? just because to the outsider we look similar (both are say, indian looking) and maybe share the same taste in food?
yes we are both indians but is that enough to treat us the same? for all you know we might be completely different as individuals. clubbing large groups of people together on the lines of nationality/religion/etc and giving them common attributes just simplifies things for us. but these are obvious oversimplifications which are fine in casual conversation (indians are lazy :P) but stupid when someone starts believing that they are actually true (all indians want to destroy kashmir so kill them 'll).
when you say you are indian, should you be responsible for every action of every soldier of the indian army posted in say, burma? or of some politician from jharkhand? shouldnt everyone just be responsible for his/her own actions are their direct consequences? all for one and one for all is good _only_ when you personally know who the "all" are. doesnt make sense to stand behind every citizen/member of a country/religion just because you also belong to that country/religion.

there is a thin line between patriotism and fanaticism. most people will equate non-fanaticism with non-patriotism, especially in such emotional times. and i dont blame them. i just have to look at _any_ page in history to realize that logic and reason are the first things to be tossed out whenever there has been an appeal to our fear and pride (personally i am not a big fan of pride, national or otherwise. its too close to ego for my taste)

i guess these terrorist attacks is a proof that some/most people would rather kill than think. i compared terrorists with freedom fighters before. their motivations might be similar but there is a vast and conceptual difference in their methods. chaphekar bros did not kill any random brit that they saw on the street or their families. they were dissatisfied by rand's policies and wanted to make _him_ pay for it. cant find a logical flaw in that :P

no kidding

time runs out fast. the other day we were discussing marriage stuff on the same table where we had discussed office politics, hot chicks, campus placements, engineering submissions... . so i figure talkin abt kids wont be far behind. this is one of my "write now, read later" kinda posts. i know this is a sensitive issue so its best to write abt it when you are not too close to the fire

we generally act our age. software professionals dont behave like kids in office (though they may behave worst :P) and kids do not behave like chartered accountants on playfield. i guess we grow up just because we have to. The body is growing no matter what, so if the mind decides not to, it just looks stupid. the body knows what its doing, it grows up, grows down and perishes. but the mind is clueless. it knows it has to change but doesnt know why and what to. so it looks around and quietly does what others its age are doing. This is all fine till you are shifting from playing hide n'seek to playing cricket, from learning arithmetic to understanding calculus, from partying with friends to romancing your girlfriend. but when your mind wants to shift from enjoying your marriage to having kids, its a paradigm shift. and it is _not_ ok to do it just because everyone else is doing it.
I say its not ok because you have the right to do anything with your own life, but do you have the right to get a new human in this world just because you have run out of answers to "wht nxt?" and want some fun in your and your family's boring life?

why have kids? this question obviously doesn't have a practical answer except that they are a high risk insurance policy and a high cost pension plan. there are other answers, some emotional some egoist and some plain stupid. here is a random sampling..

A: giving birth and raising a kid is the greatest joy one can get.
Q: i think this is true. but is it right to use somebody for your own joy and entertainment? you want to give birth because its fun?? i would suggest adoption and a school teacher job if you are so in love with bringing up kids.

A: No its great only if they are your own flesh and blood.
Q: This is plain and simple ego. What is so great about your DNA? get over it, kid is gonna be as good/bad as you raise it to be, if you are damn lucky that is. In most cases how a kid turns out is as unpredictable as the weather.

A: What if everyone stops having kids? the human race will end.
Q: yes i have actually heard this argument :P however stupid a question may seem, it deserves an answer :) when you ignore violence, turn a blind eye to corruption, roll up the window when a beggar asks for a buck, does it occur to you what if the whole humanity starts doing that? if everyone did what we do, humanity would have ran out of luck a long time ago. So dude, stop thinking about human race and think about your own, like you always do.
on second thoughts, if it actually happens that one generation decides it wont reproduce and humanity dies a natural death, it wont be such a bad end afterall. the earth wont mind for sure ;)

A: I want my kids to get to do things i didnt get to do, i want them to become what i could not.
Q: you are a loser, accept it and get on with life. dont drag an innocent being into your world of unfulfilled desires.

A: my family name should go on.
Q: yes fantastic. go spawn a cricket team.

A: I am a female, I have an instinct to be a mother.
Q: again the same thing. you have an instinct, it is fun for you to be a mother. wht about the kid? r u not using it for your own enjoyment?

A: its been 5 years after marriage. there is nothing new in life. I get bored.
Q: atleast this is honest. I can identify with you man. im gonna have the same problem. but i hope i wont get a kid to solve it for me.


Please dont get me wrong, the intent is not to ridicule. but it is sad that I haven't heard a single answer which appeals to any sort of rationale. If you have one please share it.

NOTE TO SELF: i dont think you will ever ask your parents why they got you here, but if you ever decide to have kids of your own, u've got to visit this post and pen a reason you believe in.

just another guy

i always believed tht i was better than the rest. something tht sets me apart from the crowd. maybe my mom loved me too much and made me think this, maybe no one after that was concerned enough to bring me back to my senses. nwayz i was holding on to this notion for too long and it came as a bit of a rude shock when it was broken.


Perspective. thts the art of shifting focus frm "what we see" (which is wht we do 99% of the time) to "seeing ourselves" (in the grand scheme of things). you are extremely unlucky if you possess this skill. it shows a lot of unpleasant things which you could be happily oblivious to, if only u had not stopped to ponder (or read this blog :P)

for example, a typical HR intv question - "where do u see urself 5 years down the line?" i dish out a new future for myself in every interview, and im sure u must be doin the same. but whn this comes up in ponder mode? ans dont seem so easy. The problem is not tht i dont know, rather its tht i pretty much _know_ where im goin to be. and somehow i dont like it.

i am going to be just another guy...

greatness...

"when it comes down to the 5th set in a championship match, its no longer tennis. "



sports at first glance seems rather stupid, or childish. Two grown-up men trying to get a rubber ball past each other and thousands of grownup men and women watching and screaming?? Whts the freakin point to all this?
Well, the fact is there is none :D and thts exactly wht makes it so fascinating. It is essentially a simulation of wht men are capable of doing if pushed to the limit. We have made our day to day lives so easy and comfortable tht somewhere tht animal urge to "fight it out" remains unquenched. Hence sports.

If your opponent is equal to you in terms of skill, tht is where the fun begins. doesn't matter wht sport, its a fight btwn two minds from then on. and in high pressure games (like facing federer/nadal on center court, wimbledon for the title with bjorn borg and a million people starring at u) its all abt character.
As they say, u can tell more abt a person in an hour of play than a year of acquaintance. it nt only shows ur character but forges it too. if u take it seriously of course. tht is why theres no fun in lifting weights and putting them down again. gimme a goal and put some smart men in btwn me and my goal...now thts what i call a sport!

as the BBC lady said to nadal, it was a priviledge to watch both of you play on center court today. give it up for the tennis icon of our generation...

Poverty: Not my problem

Chapter 1 : Growing up....

"stupid! I was so stupid then!!" From time to time if you can say this about yourself, its a sure sign that you are growing up! 'cause realizing u were stupid then, kinda makes u a bit smarter now. but is this growing up thing a continuous process? i think आपण प्रत्येक सेकंदाला जरी वयानी वाढत असलो तरी actually मोठे somewhat खटक्या-खटक्या नी होतो. These are the very rare moments which change us...even if that change is small or unnoticable, it is _always_ irreversible. म्हणून मी त्यांना 'खटक़े' म्हणतो. छोट्या-छोट्या गोष्टी असतात many times they are very personal and often unshared. Its fun to keep track of these rare events. They kindof show your journey in this world...rather the 'turns' you took in this journey. अश्याच काही खटक़्यांची गोष्टं....

I would never forget the warm summer nights of my childhood in pune. चौथी नंतरच्या मे महिन्याचे दिवस. अंबे असण्याचे आणि अभ्यास नसण्याचे दिवस. रात्री सगळी पालक़ मंडळी either balconey or सोसायटीच्या खालच्या कट्यावर निवांत गप्पा मारत बसायची. ती सुट्टी मला विषेश आठवते कारण त्या सुट्टीत मला भावाची "atlas goldline super" cycle मिळाली. ती इतकी उंच होती कि मला मधून पाय घालुन चालवायला लागायची. रोज रात्री गल्लितली १०-१५ पोरं cycle वर चोर-पोलिस खेळायची. For a long time I was dying to be a part of that action. एक दोन दिवस practice करुन मी पण रात्री माझी cycle काढली. सदाशिव, शुक्रवार, नारायण आणि नवी पेठ - ही boundry थरली. Ohh yess..I was no longer one of the little guys who played near the building where there moms can see them. This was the big league. I would race on the roads, just like big people. Felt great already! teams पडल्या..मी चोर होतो. रस्ते काहिच माहित नसल्यामुळे मी एका मोठ्या चोरा बरोबर रहायच अस थरवल.
and so the game began...पेरुगेट वरन‌‍ left घेतला, टिळकला right, मधेच कुठल्या तरी गल्लित left, परत right....we kept going. Damn these big guys were pretty fast. I was fighting to keep up. अस बराच वेळ चाललं. As I was navigating through these hitherto unknown parts of the city I glanced back to see if any of the "police" have caught up with us, and lost my fellow fugitives in the process. I found myself alone in the middle of nowhere. With no clue how to get back.
For the first few minutes I was confused. Then I was scared... started peddling aimlessly, hoping desparetly to see something familier. "अता घर परत सापडलच नाही तर काय?...कश्याला बोंब मारत ह्यांच्या बरोबर आलो..मस्त building मधे खेळत बसलो अस्तो! एक काम करु, पोलिस चौकी शोधू. अमित हारवला होता तेव्हा पोलिसांनिच त्याला परत आणला होता..."
I dont remember how I got back, or how much time I was 'lost'. But there I was back in the group all smiling and laughing. you know the best part? no one even knew that I was lost in the first place. I got into a big problem and solved it myself without anyone even knowing about it!!
that is like so...responsible, so "grown up". Ofcourse I ran upstairs and hugged my mom like a baby after that, But the moment was not lost....

I had tht "alone in the middle of nowhere" feeling again, when I deposited a check for almost 8 lakh rupees in BU. I mean what the fuck did I just do??? I had squandered my parents entire retirement savings, banking only on my hardwork and intelligence to get it back. And I had serious doubts about both. But as they say, its not an adventure if it doesn't scare u. I still remember the day I got funding and was in a position to repay every single penny. Man I felt so responsible, so "grown up". Of course I drank myself silly that night. But the moment was not lost….

असच एकदा आम्ही डेक्कन वर बिड्या मारत बसलो होतो. त्या आधी 'कु कुच कु' मधे एक मस्त कोंबडी पोटात सर्कवलेली. दुसऱ्या दिवशी MS साठी अमेरिकेला उडणार होतो. आम्ही 'जी जे घैसास' च्या steps वर बसलो होतो. compound च्या पलिकडे एक भिकारी उभा होता. beggers are as much a part of the cityscape as roads and sidewalk, so I saw him but didn't take notice as such. बिड्यांन वर बिड्या पेटत होत्या आणि अमच्या गप्पा रंगत होत्या. पण बळच माझ लक्ष त्या भिकाऱ्या कडे जात होत. तसा standard भिकारी होता,complete with फाटके कपडे, वाकलेल शरीर, सुऱ्कुतलेला चेहरा, the works! actually तो भिक पण मागत न्हवता, नुस्ताच सुन्नपणे बघत होता. आमच्या general गप्पा सुरु होत्या. topclass education, dollar मधे पगार, गोऱ्या पोरी, etc. basically bright future आणि राडा ऐश. Again my gaze drifted towards this begger dude. त्याच्या हातावर कुणीतरी एक रुपया थेवला होता आणि तो त्याच्या कडे फक्त बघत होता. I have never seen an image more devoid of hope. तशी आपली कातडी टणक असते but this paradox hit me. आम्ही इथे २५० रुपयांची कोंबडी रिचवुन ४-४ रुपायच्या बिड्या मारत होतो अणि तो ४ रुपये जमले तर रात्री उपाशी झोपाव लागणार नाही असा विचार करत असेल.

मी काही दुधखुळा नाही. I understand everybody cannot be equal. some are rich and some will be poor. But damn! I mean I can survive without a few useless luxuries like cigarettes but somebody give that man some food for christ's sake. fulltu senti होउन मी पाकिट काढल आणि हाताला लागल्या तितक्या नोटा त्याच्या हातात कोंबल्या. मला वाटल तो full खुश होइल, हसेल वगेरे. पण त्यानी त्या नोटांकडे पाहिलही नाही. सलाम केल्या सारख काहितरी केलं आणि compound ला धरत पुधे निघुन गेला. मला काही समजल नाही. I mean have seen more wretched looking beggers smile at a rupee and this guy was staring blank at 500 bucks. थोडे परत घ्यावे का, असाही विचार मनात डोकावून गेला.
मी अजुन एक गाधवपणा केला. तो जाताना त्याच्या डोळ्यात पाहील. Maybe I was smoked up but those were the eyes of a man who once had it all, and lost everything in an..instant. I could feel the mute reverberations of tht instant in his moist sunken eyes.
The paradox hit me like a bullet. I had everything to look fwd to, and tht poor old guy had nothing. At tht moment I was so god damn lucky to be me, and not him. But for a sec this thought occured to me...wht if I _was_ him. And tht scared the shit out of me. What would it be like to lose it all?
तेव्हाच एक खटका उडाला. I guess wht you need the most to survive this stay on earth is not money, not power, not people, not even food. Its plain and simple 'hope'. Everything can be built from it, everything. So buddy, you keep your hope thingy where no one can reach it, not even your closest and dearest. 'cause u lose him and u lose it all. Perhaps I could hve done without this incident, but it happened never the less.
And yes it did make me feel very "grown up".....

Take the highway they say, turns slow you down. but I think some turns are worth slowing down. कोण जाणे पुधच वळण तुम्हाला काय शिकवून जाईल !!