Friday, July 27, 2007

A life .. which ended .. when it started ..(something i wrote)

On a rain drenched august day ...

she opened her eyes ...to the world ..

her world ..which was her mother just then ...

who held her close with tears in her eyes ..

held her till she could hold ...

coz she knew she wont be there ...

wont be there to take care of her ..

when she wud need it the most ...


Five years on ..

and she does nt still know ...

why people look at her with disdain ..

why noone s there to share her pain ..

the pain of losing her mother to a disease unknown ..

the pain of having noone in this world she could call her own .

Why there are questions in everyone s eyes ..

which she doesnt understand .. let alone answer ..

Why noone wants to touch her ..not even her friends ..

why she is so alone in this world ..

There s noone to share her grief ..

the grief which she knows nothing about ..


And as she fallls sick ..

there s noone to take care of her ...

some people who care .. take her to the hospital ..

she lives in pain and grief a little more ..

her last few days ..

spent .. like her life ...

a life .. which ended .. when it started ..

She never knew .. why she lived ..

she never knew why she died ..

she never knew .. why she had no life ..

she never knew she had AIDS

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Jobs, Employees and Resignations

well .. attrition is so commonplace these days in all companies .. and whenever i look at that next one who leaves .. i wonder whether it is just becoz there are so many opportunities available or there is some other reason too ??...just twenty years back ..leaving ur first or any job before at least 5 years would b considered a cardinal sin ... the issues and the outlook regarding, jobs , opportunities and manpower has changed.. thou i wonder how the rules regarding manpower at that time would have compared with the ones now ...
I mean . think of it guys .. the concept of manpower has changed so much ... today men are the biggest M for running a business . even bigger than Money and Material .. it s the age of paying hefty salaries to people .. but the fact still remains ... that be it a sales executive or a worker in a mfg. unit , a deskjob emplyee or a software executive ... they are still exploited .. all of them in a bigg way in most companies of the world .. and no i m not being disillusioned ...it s very true .. while we think that . so what if i put in extra hrs .. i m being paid so much ... the truth is that .. anyways the company pays you less than 20% of what u r worth .. they have to .. else how would they make those hefty profits .. most Indian companies i believe are very bureaucratuc .. and do not really understnd what investing into an employee for life means.. they are all very .. shortsighted in their outlook .. they want to get the maximum out of an employee while he s there .. coz they blv that he d surely jump out of the orgn very soon ... and thus companies create an envt, where even a person who s wlling to stay on for a longer term .. and wants to learn and move in a planned manner gets stuck in this cat and mouse game .....none of the orgns in india are good learning or breeding grounds for employees.. the good ole theory abt .. most learning happeneing at work s gone down the wire....orgns need to realise that like ,, money ..and other resources or like the organisation itself .. each and every employee is a long term asset and he needs to be nurtured and taken care of .. so that he stays on in the orgn for a longer time ...i mean we all know the perspective that the orgn . cannnot do anything since the employees leave so early ... well to give a new picture .. the orgns are just as indifferent ..and it would take a change of outlook to improve this situation ..

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Narishakti ---- to wake us up from the slumber

As has been the tradition it has always been women who have woken you, me everyone up from the deep slumber ...whether it is ur Mom, ur sister , ur wife (not yet for me) ... ur girlfried, sweetheart, dreamgirl, crush keeps u woken up through nights of starry loneliness
and if not for this .. studies have woken us up and kept us awake for long ... (studies or the Goddess Saraswati ...) Money or the lack of it keeps the rich and the poor awake ... ( Goddess Lakshmi) ... and if ever u do any misdeeds .. Durga the Goddess will wake u up ....
well so much to establish the ever powerful , ever soulful , ever earnest creation that women around u are .... and what calls for this celebration of womanhood is not because i m getting married or have gotten smitten ... but because ..for the first time in 60 years of our existence as a nation .. we will have a Feminine Head of State .. Ms. Pratibha Patil will be sworn in as the president of India on July26 and it should be a proud moment for all of us as a nation ... we have left behind USA .. who in there 230 years of existence have never had a female head of state ... and it is a shame on any nation to talk so much about equal existence and rights and be so hypocritical in their actions ...
I know this is a small gesture only as President's seat is more of decorative post .. but i hope it is a step in the right direction ..and we can really see the equality we talk about not only in the cities but in the most backward villages of this nation too

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Life in India

18 lakh 17 thousand 8 hundred and 17 ... is the number of times i have had to answer one question to my friends, cousins, relatives, friends of parents, neighbours , relatives of neighbours , cousins of cousins of aunts , uncles of neigbours , grandparents and parents .... and this one question is ... " why dont u go to the US ?" and i have given them so many different answers at diff states of my life ... .. but the question remains .... and the answer is really close to my heart ....

Besides the fact that i would be "good for nothing" in the US of A or any place outside India, since i dont have any expertise into what most of u r doing in US ...

the biggest reason for me not being abroad .. is becoz i dont want to ... and thats becoz ... i love my life .... my life in India ... India which is home .. home close to my parents ... my parents who i cant think of spending a week without ... home of my friends ... who r integral to my life ..... home of my House .... every corner of which i love .... home of my dreams ... my dreams which have never crossed boundaries ... ... and i know this sounds very emotional and utter impractical stuff ... but to tell u the truth ... i cant miss the happiness that i get here everyday ...

the happy showers that wash the dusty summer .... the cold winters .... the familiar faces ... and the unfamiliar ones too ... which somehow dont let the person in the mirror be ur only friend .... .. the girls (the best and the most beautiful) .... the seas ... the mountains .. the deserts ... the plains .. the KHETs ...

India which is home to My country ... my coutry which is on its way to bcome a superpower ... which is the best place to be if u want to start a new business ... the place ... which is on the verge of the biggest development spree that mankind will ever see ... India ... the country the world's rushing to ....

India and my life in India ....i cant give them up ... and hence i ll be here ,,

Saturday, July 7, 2007

Mumbai - Livable ?

One thing that really fascinates me .. is how cities are planned ?
i mean if we truly see .. there are some citiees which are planned ..
yes there are some in
India too . ..
I mean ppl staying in
Bombay ,, which is a totally unplanned city ..
would not actually believe that cities could be planned .. but than they can be ..
some of the best planned cities in the world are .. London , Shanghai,Singapore,
HongKong,Dubai
and many more ...these cities have well defined commercial, residential,entertainment
and other zones in the city .. there is so much emphasis on planning ..
some of the cities are so planned that .. that at any given time there are almost equal number of
people in all major areas of the city ... the commercial,residential and other sectors
are equally distributed to facilitate this

well i m telling u abt this coz traveling, walking and in fact living has become almost impossible
in Mumbai ...trains are crowded .. roads are jammed and there are ppl all around and
apart from the influx of ppl in this city .. another problem with this city is its crumbling
infrastructure and bad design (planning)

The problem with mumbai s infrastructure has always been that the city travels in
one directions at a time ..
it is either townwards in the morning or .. outta town in the evening ..
the reason off course is the fact that the city centre .. which includes the commercial hub
for which it is known .. which still employs the largest number of people is in south
bombay ..
and as and when the land prices escalated in the southern area ..
and Mumbai had only one direction to grow.. so the residential areas kept moving .. upwards ..
and to such an extent .. that at one time .. almost all of Mumbai travelled southwards ..in the morning ..
anyways .. the authorities finally woke up .. and there have been infrastructure and transportation plans ..
like MUTP and MUIP to make mumbai a better city ..
the shifting of commercial areas to BKC, SEEPZ and New Bombay etc. is one such step ..
widening of roads . better planning in terms of residential areas ..extra rail lines , flyovers , slum rehab ,
clearing mill lands etc .. are projects which i hope will result in a better mumbai.....

to tell u a few facts abt some cities which are well planned and are Indian ..

Jaipur and Chandigarh are cities where all the roads cut each other at right angles ..

There can never be a traffic jam at connaught place which is the city centre of New Delhi

Vashi and Chandigarh are cities divided into various sectors .. of equal areas ..
and each sector has parks, markets and other facilities.

New Delhi, Jaipur, Vashi and Chandigarh .. are some of the recent cities in India ..
which are very well planned ..