A tale of two cities

Johannesberg VS New Delhi                               

I am fond of comparisons, and the events around the world keep providing me the fodder to continue drawing parallels. And as the appellation very much indicates this blog is also not going to be any different.

All the sport aficionados would be quite familiar with the two mascots that are motifs of  the two major sports events for the year 2010.
If you are acquainted with Zakumi and are clueless about Shera, it is slightly flustering but predictable.
Zakumi is a cheerful and sporty leopard who is official Mascot of the 2010 FIFA World Cup,  and Shera is our very own Royal Bengal Tiger, it is the embodiment of everything that is royal, brave and fierce. If Shera is not as popular as Zakumi, its not the fault of the royalty but the Government of India which has not done enough to make it the face of India for Commonwealth Games 2010.

What I have found quite interesting here is that both the countries are a part of commonwealth, they both have their official mascots from the cat family, but the analogy culminates here. Johannesberg has put up a world class show, it is the first African country to have hosted it, and is apparently doing quite some justice to it. If one goes through the website of the hosting city , one cannot help being impressed with the painstaking, diligent and ostentatious preparations. The so called third world never ceases to bewilder the west on and off the field, be it beijing or johannesberg.

But as always there are exceptions to the rules : New Delhi, If one stays in the capital one can see witness it for self, its a lot of brouhaha and no real action, news feeds are awash with their aspersion of the substructure and arrangements. For a city that has an additional responsibility of averting all possible terror attacks it is obviously not doing the needful.

As i write this post, there still remain ninety seven days for the show down, lets see if the sorcerers of Delhi can give us a spectacle.

I remain, India's sincerely
Suyasha

A fine beer may be judged with only one sip, but it's better to be thoroughly sure

My allegiance to beer is complete, I was myself not conscious of this till the last weekend. The whole of Friday, Saturday and Sunday were invested to the service of the drink which is a bliss to so many. I have come so far as to believe that fermentation might have been even a greater discovery than fire. Here goes the chronicle :

For Germans football and beer are conjoined, its impossible to imagine a football match without beer mugs to give it company, so when the FIFA world cup time table came up,  with it also emanated the arrangements for viewing the match on a big screen with big beer mugs. All the quotas were checked and rechecked and finally 900 litres of beer was secured to be imported from Germany... I know its..... WOW !!!

But as always there was a Caveat...as I am a widely acknowledged proverbial Pech Vogel, the import was hardly going to be a smooth affair. i completed the formalities of a duty free import and was fervently awaiting the cargo arrival notice. The ship was caught in the "Doldrums" i should have apprehended that (with the kind of jeopardizes and contingencies I am accustomed to, this should not have ideally come as a surprise). So the task which normally takes four working days to complete was to be accomplished in 12 hours. It took every iota of patience at my disposal, and every good word in my limited vocabulary to get the barrels delivered at my door step ( Please read door step as Office), @ 12:30 in the night.
I am no alcohol drinker, and have never been inclined to try it either, but when the barrels were being transported to the storage, one of them developed a leak, and spill on my hands, as a reflex I wiped it off my shirt, and LO !!! I was actually stinking of beer, it took a lot of washing and cleaning to get the rid off the odor. Finally I retired home with the satisfaction of a job well done.

The next day I was ostensibly dozing off in my German class, the overcast sky was not helping the situation either, when I got an invitation to attend a party of a youth brigade, it was one of those situation where saying no is impolite, so I agreed, which further extended my stint with beer.

Sunday was the Day of the Germany Vs Australia match, for which I had undertaken so much of theatrics, I thought I very much deserved to be there, and spent the final evening of my weekend yet again surrounded by "beer mugs and Prosts and Saluds".

For a person who doesn't drink beer I apparently contribute a lot to the Beer Industry.......just to give you all an idea, have attached a pic with the barrels :)

For the love of beer I have attached a small proverb, its from Russia with love:

the Church is near,
but the road is icy,
The bar is far away,
but i will walk carefully.

Cheers !
Suyasha

Tale of a God bestriding like a colossus and of a guilty ferret with shifty beady eyes

I had taken a sabbatical from blogging for quite some time, due to work related commitments, and it was indeed very gratifying when a lot of people asked me when was i going to write next :)

Two things caught my attention over the last fortnight, both different contexts but deploring a common thing - A weak national leadership. The first was the press conference held by the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh and the second was the comment made by Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi on the former Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru. From the first PM to this one nothing has changed much for India. My corollary is that both of these men have constantly been described in pejorative terms as meek , timid and myopic and quixotic respectively.

Since there is nothing that we can do about the past, lets take up the present.

Dr. Manmohan singh's conference was one befalling which he could have used to silence his censurers. But instead of quelling the irksome correspondents, he continued his monotonous speech and abstained from answering tough questions, the ones that he answered were of course brimming with over used hackneyed phrases.

I bore the torture as much as my patience would allow, and then my thoughts drifted to an interview that I had read a couple of years ago. It was published in the TIME magazine with the then Russian President, Vladimir Putin, the impression of the journalists was quite a read, the gaze described was that of a man who says i am in command, talking to him is chilling as if the Russian winters are not enough for the foreign press. He gives an evident impression of a man who effortlessly exudes power. He is petite but that factor is easily overcome by his consummate confidence. and makes no effort to placate the press.

I find the comparison between the two premiers quite relevant: both the nations are vast ( russia expands over 11 time zones)they both have their respective share of problems, both have to be most of the time at the receiving end of world politics, but the Russian premier knows the rules of the game better and refuses to be auxiallary subject to the powers at home or abroad, and the less said about the Indian PM, the better. In the whole press conference the only time he appeared chirpy was when the subject of Rahul Gandhi being made the Prime Minister came up,he is a man who is a pawn in his own country and is only making his stature ludicrous abroad.

I am only hoping for a day when the TIME magazine publishes such an article about an Indian Prime Minister.

I also came across a widely popular joke, which summarizes the entire article:

Putin and Bush are fishing on the Volga River. After half an hour Bush complains, "Vladimir, I'm getting bitten like crazy by mosquitoes, but I haven't seen a single one bothering you."
Putin: "They know better than that."

Liebe Grüße
Suyasha

We're all downstream

Now that i have not been able to read much on the topic of the effect of including caste in the census, I have put it on the back burner for some time.

In the interim I made a trip to the Shivansamudram waterfalls in Karnataka, approximately 120 kms. from Bangalore. Since I am a child of the desert and have spent my entire childhood and adolescence amongst sand dunes so my fascination for water is somewhat more piquant than what is normally observed. So when i had the first glimpse of the falls which is from a distance my spirits were in a flutter. I couldn't wait to get down and feel the water flowing through my fingers.

I had to be repeatedly told to slow down while running down the stairs, when i finally reached the falls, to say that i was disheartened would be an understatement.
There was plastic strewn all over the place: in the water on the rocks, not to forget the empty cans of beer, empty packets of "Lays and Bingos" which were swimming everywhere in the water. The place was extremely filthy , the only place that appeared immaculate and unpolluted was the falls itself , where people were not allowed due to safety reasons.

Being a vegetarian the sight there was even more despicable to me. The stench of fish being fried was all pervasive, with bones and flesh rife on the floor. Why are we so deplorable and rotten as citizens, even a cat cleans the place where it sits, and we deface it with no scruples at all!!! i just fail to understand why are we so averse to aesthetics? How difficult it is to carry a plastic bag along and dump the waste in it instead of throwing it around. Why can't the local people there not have shops at some distance and maintain a dustbin at least.
A couple of years back i had the chance of visiting Dandeli in northern Karnataka, its a forest area in the northern part of the state on the banks of the River Kali, the water there was so clean that one could actually drink it from the river. The only difference between Dandeli and sivansamudram was: that there was a fee at Dandeli :)

Since we have already proven time and again that we have an irrevocable lackadaisical approach towards civic sense and a completely circumspect attitude towards money it is advisable that we levy a fine on anyone who spoils the place or put a fee on the visit so that it is not taken for gratis and civic authorities can spend the money on its cleanliness.

Alles Liebe
Suyasha

PS: the Photograph was taken where a small stretch of water appeared clean from distance, just a feel good factor.

Caste System: a malediction, we are so proud of

I am tired of playing the Damsel in Distress ( wrt the last few Blogs) and I thought of taking a contemplative route.

As usual i start with a disclaimer: I have not been able to read a lot of facts, (as the debate is yet to heat up !) hence its more of an ideological approach than a factual one. Its one major event of this year, and no I am not talking about the World cup Football, I am talking about the Indian Census 2011, which is being conducted presently and is sure to turn into a heated Debate.

Before getting to the main point , i will digress a bit, and take you to the background of this caste controversy, and in the next blog will deal with its implications on the census. (Here i need your patience as a reader).

If we dwell a bit into the Indian History it emerges that the caste system has been the result of a social conspiracy, the caste that was determined by actions in ancient India came to be gradually determined by birth. Those members of the society who were at the pinnacle of this pyramid, to establish themselves permanently there encouraged determination of caste by birth. The Mahabharat War was the most detrimental to the Caste system. After the war there was a serious dearth of altruistic people who could guide the society, and a selfish few who controlled the political and religious authority inspired determination of caste by birth. the rights which were based on competence and ingenuity were replaced by virtue of birth. Dwij, the highest echelon of the caste system ( acquired only when one gains knowledge), could now be obtained with or without education/knowledge.

This loosened with the introduction of English education in India, where a certain Mr. Sharma could run a shoe Company and a person belonging to the Scheduled Caste could be the Principal Secretary in the Central government. But this seemingly egalitarian System also backfired after Independence when we introduced Reservation System in India. To annihilate one evil we gave birth to the other: just because its an antithesis, doesn't prove that its right.
The earlier society gave the Brahmins the highest pedestal and now the Government has made the Shudras the "official brahmins".. these both ideologies have one common defect; they are both based on birth, the motto for both is " Long live this Caste System".
Why does this society wants the Caste System alive, : answer is not obtuse: all equations of power travel through the corridors of caste. Since the census of 1931 caste was not mentioned in the Indian Census but it has been resurrected in the 2011 Census.


Why is it such a controversy and why should it be desisted... will take it up in the next blog.

alles Liebe
Suyasha

PS: i know this was a lesson in History and a mere repetition of facts that you all have read but felt it necessary to write in order to prepare the ground for the next blog.

Harbingers of Misery

I am a sheer failure at reading omens, i see the precursors of doom every where and don't heed to the warnings ! we start from yesterday: I had a very hectic day at work, i had been running from pillar to post doing errands for an upcoming event, in the evening i had promised to visit a father's friend so i was anyways not looking forward to a usual restful evening. But this..... i had not expected.

The acquaintances were good people they had sent some one to pick me up, i spent a quiet evening at their place and insisted ( on second thoughts i invited trouble open heartedly and quite unnecessarily too ) to go back on my own. it was drizzling and the sky had a very deep shade of gray instead of the usual azure at this hour. ( An omen), i sat in the volvo occupied a convenient seat and was enjoying other people running to weather the storm, when the conductor asked for the ticket i looked for my wallet , i couldn't find it, worse i couldn't remember where had i misplaced it. i was forced to join the bandwagon of those forsaken people who i had been looking from the window and humoring my self ( i did not know i would be rewarded so soon for my impish pleasures). you can find a fleet of buses on the outer Ring road in Bangalore, but finding an auto there, who would be ready to drive till Indiranagar, is a Herculean Task, i found one, after 15 minutes of tryst with the rain, paid on reaching home, and was glad that the day was finally over. But the troubles were waiting for the climax!!

The same night we ran out of water, its surprising how Bangalore runs out of water when its pouring every where, Water here, water there but not a drop to drink :(
By morning there was just enough water to brush my teeth. Wow what a lovely start... couldn't have been better!!!

Sulking i reached office albeit 45 mins early than usual, from here things started to look up a bit, we run our office from a nice apartment off MG road which is set up with all modern amenities and we are by default supposed to keep a fresh supply of clothes and other toiletries for emergencies like curfew's, terrorists attacks, overwork etc. ( though these kinds of emergencies they would have never thought of). I made use of all that was at my disposal, took a long bath, have decided to go for a king size breakfast and looking forward to the usual leisure of an evening well deserved.

Hopefully i am out of dark ages and re welcomed into civilization, and have running water at home by now :), i have two friends joining me tomorrow from Delhi and i am in no good humor to go through the plight of the day before. I am hopelessly optimistic :)

toi toi toi !!!

Alles Liebe
Suyasha

When the Cat is Away the Mice will Play !

He has been adorned with many sobriquets in every office: Team lead, Reporting Manager, boss or even Hitler, depending on his disposition towards oneself. But one thing is for sure, irrespective of the fact whether he or she is for better or for worse, the fact that they are away definitely brings a euphoric and zingy feeling even if for a few days.

I am yet to meet a person who has not conveyed the news brazenly with a very genuine touch of amusement revealing how he or she truly feels about it. I have undergone the ordeal of having an atrocious woman for a boss, such was her terror that the above mentioned adage seems custom made for her. The mood used to become boisterous on hearing that she was a having a cold or a cough. I found myself often praying that her son should have an exam to write everyday so that she can take leaves :)

Barring a few circumstances, my luck is quite a bestowing one and very soon i got a break. It seemed to be a transition from a winter of despair to a spring of hope. The gentleman was a prodigiously well bred man, with a great superiority of mind, a genuine concern or at least its expression, i never had a problem working with him.

To my utter surprise when he went on leave i found myself jubilant, now what was that? i enjoy the absence of a good boss and a bad boss both !!! i have to be harebrained to think like that, but over the time i have seen this fact is universally acknowledged albeit not openly.

The fact that you are not being chaperoned gives a sense of freedom and emancipation, you are the master of your life in your office, you feel exactly like a modern teenager who party's when parents are away.


Why did i write all this today ??? i leave it to your own surmises :)

Liebe Grüße
Suyasha