The Arguments within

Telltales of a fundamentalist : 1. He is really a Chauvinist who strongly holds that his culture, society, country, religion or his people are greatest. 2. He continually tries to absorb ‘ only what is good in other cultures and countries’. Thus he puts lots of focus on demarcating the ‘good’ from the ‘bad’. 3. He is poor in his communication skills in any language, and may even admit that though he cannot put his thoughts in right words but his thoughts are still ‘right.’ 4. He is superficially a very ‘secular’ person who ‘respects other religions also’. 5. He also continues to assert that is being humane in his ways 6. He assures that ‘excessive’ freedom is bad. And so the freedom of Press should is most essential to be put in control. The Sting Operations are the obvious proof of it where personal areas have been intruded. 7. He instantly feels offended whenever anything critical of his goodies emerges. He tries to suppress it there and then. Thus...

Negatives of Lucknow’s ‘Aap’-culture . “ Pehale aap .” “ Nehin, pehale aap .” And the train sets away rolling. This is the most vivid picture that comes to our mind, the moment we talk about the Awadh’s (formerly, for Lucknow) ‘ Aap-aap’ . And even when the train is missed out in surmounting one’s ‘pehale aap’ (‘you first, please’) on the other, Lucknowites are still proud of it. For, now this is seen as the symbol of the city’s greatest patronage to two popular language of the country at their distinction, the Urdu and the Hindustani. Javed Akhtar, Naushad, K.P. Saxena, -- don’t know how many noted literati have taken routes to fame through the streets of Lucknow. But, like we keep one-track thinking for most of our subjects, so do we do here. Because we consider only ‘aap’ to be pure and the best, and the rest to be sub-standard-- ‘Tum’ is more of plebeians. The two are never evaluated against their merits and demerits— formal or informal, stressful or comfortable. All ruled out—it h...

Our misplaced obsession about Bhagwad Geeta Thousands of years, and this scripture is still so current. This has been the guide of the Hindu lifestyle, and may I propose- the Indian lifestyle, since time immemorial. And amazingly enough the ancient philosophy finds its relevance in our lifestyle even on this day, despite so many social and technology-driven changes. I was mesmerized to see the rock sculpture of Shree Krisna and Arjun on their chariot, on the battlefield, with Krisna’s forefinger stretched outwards (to the enemies) at the entrance of IIM-Lucknow. Perhaps this is the first and most classic case of war-management, wherein the Advisor—or the manager, in the seat of the chariot pilot, changes the ordained outcome of a war, the Mahabharata. The holy Shlok(the Verse) associated with this famous scene read: ‘ Yadaa yadaa hee adhramasya, glaanir bhavati bharatah, abhyuthanam dharmaya, tadaatmaanam shrijaamayham’ Meaning: Whenever shall the Adharm (the evil) humiliate this land,...

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...