The Arguments within

My take on Rang de basanti… Truly a generation-awakening film. Apart from ‘people liked it so much…’; ‘ it became a movement..’; ‘candle light vigils became an in thing..’, etc, what I liked most about this movie was its take on handling the enemy within — the last scene in which actor Siddharth is shown killing his own father Rajpath Singhania, the corrupt Defense middleman, played by ever-supreme, Aunpam Kher. For the whole lot of Indian, the fight was simply about taking the enemy as close as inside the territory; but for Siddharth! Because for him, he was very much inside the house, may be inside his blood also . This aloof character is shown fighting the hardest battle. Mustn’t have been easy, I am sure. And I suspect it is here that the entire real life patrons are going to put the high ideals of this movie in the cold bag. For not all of us can fight this enemy, the self. We cannot choose to part ways with our luxuries; the bare facts of a provincial life begin to loom large bef...

Be right, not dead right. Try not to prove yourself to be right; try to prove what u did was what you felt to be right.

Character sketch of Captain Vaz Captain Derrick Fernandes Vaz. This is his full name. Supposedly the most awesome and formidable of all the nautical surveyors in MMD, Mumbai. He is also seen as one of the most knowledgeable persons around. Very much up-to-date and thorough with the procedures, legislations and ship knowledge. His name has often given scares and sweat to candidates. He is known for asking highly ultra-syllabus questions which are instantly perceived as never-answerable. Though I myself never had any opportunity of facing him for my oral exams, I have always got intrigued by his charisma after hearing people’s reports of experiences with him. Hence my psycho profiling is based on the same along with just one write-up I have read, written by him, and a couple of encounters I had for other works. Most of time he puts up those subject questions only for which the candidate appears to be least prepared. For those who emanate a feel of thorough preparations, there are alw...

New age management thoughts for future policy makers in India :- 1) Over ninety percent of Indians are congenitally dishonest and corrupt. Every policy must incorporate provisions to keep strict checks on people in its own circuit also. 2) There is no such thing as good-faith and altruism known to over ninety percent of us. Having born and brought up in a jungle-like living condition where we have to fight for everything from food to naukri to chokri, we always look at each other with suspicion. We are eternally cynical. 3) We are still very much an uncivilized society who do not know the concept of nation, society and governments. Our nationalism comes into play only when Pakistan is in opposition. Otherwise we like to have a jungle-like living. 4) Quite many of us do not believe in power of pen or the magic of good education for we have never seen it happening. 5) We span between to very extremes—super rich and super poor. Proportion of super rich in our population is very small. The...

30 October, 2006 I am losing my favourite game… India loses out to Australia again. And what’s more, it was a predictable defeat. We knew, at least I did, that, we are born to be losers on most of the days. We win only on odd days. Defeat is ours, triumph theirs. In 2004, while serving on ship ‘Pataliputra’, we would go to Australia quite regularly. The coastal passage along the Great Barrier Reef from Cape York in the Torres Strait to Cairns is a pilotage waters. Hence in this June’04 trip there was this pilot, Mike, on board. An oversized, pot-bellied, couch potato who perhaps did nothing but piloting and watching sports on TV. Pilotage is a 3 days affair during which pilot stays on board night and day. I was serving as second mate at that time. On the second day of the inward passage, Mike and us, my two cadets and myself, got into some discussions on performance of Indian versus Australians in various fields. Funny man Mike counted to us how the Aussies have been excelling in task ...