Zindabaad Murdabaad

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Posted by Sidhu | Posted in India, Music | Posted on 17-03-2013

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We are in Delhi, attending a Sufi music festival and a singer abc from some xyz country is singing Bulle Shah’s poetry “tere ishq nachaya kar ke thaiya thaiya”.

Some hooligans get on to the stage and start raising anti xyz country slogans and obviously the performance is disrupted and the scene is totally different now.

Who could do such a stupid act at a Sufi music festival ?

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I think most of you would have guessed the country by now. Let me tell you the event and singer’s name: Sanam Marvi singing at Sufi Sindhi festival. And those murdabaad torch bearers were Shiv Sainiks. (Here is the link to the piece of news in Hindu)

They are well known for all such things but I seriously don’t understand the point of disturbing a singer’s performance even if she happens to be from the country which we don’t have a very good relations with. Personally there are things from Pakistan that disappoint me but those policies and all are governed by establishment not singers.

Honestly to my surprise she started singing again once they were driven off the stage by the event crew folks. Earlier she was sitting but now she was standing and sung few songs. The performance lasted for an hour or little more but obviously they had spoiled the scene !

What crap !

But I do have a suggestion that I posted on FB last night:

“Our govt must create a new regiment in the army where only Shiv Sena walas will be allowed to join. And then that regiment should guard our international borders with Pakistan and China.

Lets use this blood that boils so much !”

So what is wrong and what needs to be done ?

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Posted by Sidhu | Posted in India | Posted on 29-12-2012

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Quite literally everything…I repeat every damn thing is wrong in this country !

The defunct law and order system: In general system the law and order system is totally defunct. The criminals are no longer scared of what their fate is gonna be after the crime ? One can easily get away after committing a heinous crimes like murder or rape.

The police: The police no longer works for the common man or the sufferer. I have a personal experience of dealing with Delhi Police (in the capital of India…you hear ?) while trying to get an FIR registered for a theft. No one is ready to listen to you; NO ONE. The misery and helplessness you are made to feel at police stations is beyond the expression in words. In such a scenario where one can go for help ? There is no need to mention how the police will behave in case someone from an influential background is involved in the crime.

Judiciary: Judiciary has turned out to be the absolute disappointment. Lakhs of cases are pending in the courts. Judges, lawyers, eye witnesses everyone can be bought for money and in such a scenario you can hardly hope for any justice. Even one manages to file a case, the trial goes on for years resulting in even more suffering. Remember Surjit Patar’s words ?

Es adalat ‘ch bande birakh ho gaye,
Faisle sundeyan sundeyan suk gaye
Aakho enha nu ujjade gharin jaan hun
Eh kado teek ethe khade rehange

Such is the state of our judicial system.

Today’s generation: We do talk a lot about helping someone if he/she is in trouble. But reality tells a different bit. You see something happening on the road and try to get involved in that. There are pretty much chances that you yourself are going to be injured, killed or something like that. We have already seen cases where someone challenged few youngsters who were eve teasing a girl and that poor man has to pay with his life. Such shameful and horrible incidents set a different tone and everybody tries to walk away even if he sees something happening around.

The sick mentality of this society: One of the most important points is the sick mentality of the society especially MEN. I don’t want to write much on this topic. That saying “All Men are dogs” explains it all.

Women’s portrait in the media: Our media, newspapers, magazines, movies have left no stone unturned to portrait woman as a bodily object of pleasure that can be used as man wants and then thrown away. That is what most of the movies and music videos present. Result of all that is that we are at this stage !

So my friends this is where we stand today ! I can just hope that we head towards betterment. Nothing more to say. If the scenario remains the same, you already know what the future is gonna be like Sad smile .

I am sorry girl…

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Posted by Sidhu | Posted in India, Society | Posted on 29-12-2012

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I shuddered with horror after reading what this poor girl has to go through. She was a brave girl and fought very bravely. But today she lost the fight and is no more with us.

We all are responsible for your death girl. We are all ashamed of

being part of this society,

being mute spectators of the injustice happening around us,

being part of this impotent system,

choosing this impotent government that can’t protect us.

May your soul rest in peace !

And I am not sure where “God” is at this moment ? As Nasir Kazmi said

oh mere masroof khuda,

apni dunia dekh zara

Indian singers famous in Pakistan

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Posted by Sidhu | Posted in Music | Posted on 08-12-2012

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The popularity of Pakistani singers in India is a very well known thing. But the other thing I have always wanted to know is which Indian singers are heard in Pakistan.So thought of writing a blog post to know little more. Of course there is no hidden agenda Smile with tongue out. Just out of curiosity wanted to know this.

It will be great if you could write the name of the singer in the comments. It will be even more awesome if you could few lines as well.

Please note that Bollywood playback singers don’t qualify as an answer.

Hoping to hear from Pakistani friends !

The (sad) world around us

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Posted by Sidhu | Posted in Society | Posted on 17-10-2012

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Nothing specific to write. Just a random post.

Was watching TV and the corruption sagas getting unfolded. How common man is being looted by the corrupt politicians and he can’t do much. The so called democracy looks more like dictatorship.

Thoughts of the large fraction of people are shaped by the “biased” media. So a big number doesn’t even understand what is good and what is bad for them ?

Move outside the country and in the neighborhood a 14 year old girl was shot in head for promoting education for women. What ? EDUCATION !

Move little more and you see a country that has been at war since so many years. As many as i can remember i think.

Have a look at the world map and countries are fighting with each other. Reasons ? either one wants to become more powerful or wants to have access to some natural resource that other country have in plenty.

The financial imbalance is increasing like anything. There are people who don’t know how much wealth they have and on the other side there are millions who don’t know whether they will get a meal before sleeping or not ?

Newspapers are full of news about rapes, murders, killings, corruption.

People are fighting over religions. Or are being killed in the name of religions.

Such a sad world we live in !

I am not sure if there is some God watching all this. Did he want the earth to be like this ? If NO then why doesn’t he do something ? After all it is he who is running everything. No ?

Ujaarha

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Posted by Sidhu | Posted in India, Punjabi | Posted on 16-08-2012

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One thing that always gets ignored while talking about India’s independence is the partition of India. It was the largest displacement of people in the 20th century. The state worst affected by this was Punjab. It was divided into two parts and a large displacement of Muslims to Pakistan and Hindus & Sikhs to India started. Result was that an uncontrolled bloodshed followed. The unfortunate thing is that today’s generation hardly understands what exactly happened during those times. Even Punjabis don’t understand what exactly partition meant ? A friend sent me the link to this poem by a young Pakistani poet Afzal Saahir that describes the pain of the people who had to leave their homes and move to a complete new place. They could never forget the pain of leaving the place of their childhood and youth. In the poem Afzal talks about similar emotions.

 

Also the amazing kaun dushman hai by Ali Sardar Jafri

ghulam tum bhi the yaroon,
ghulam hum bhi thhe

Naha ke khoon mein aayi thi fasle azadi
Maza to tab tha ki milkar ilaaj e jaan karte

khud apne haath se tameer e gulsitan karte

hammare dard mein tum, aur tumhare dard mein ham
shareek hote to jashne aashiyaan karte

Tum aao gulshan e Lahore se chaman bardosh
hum ayen subah Banaras ki roshni lekar
Himalaye ki hawaaon ki taazgi lekar
Aur iske baad ye punchhen kaun dushman hai

(Taken from here)

We are brothers

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Posted by Sidhu | Posted in India, Music | Posted on 15-01-2012

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Someone’s comment on youtube on a video of Atta Ullah Khan:

sometimes i think that i HATE pakistan…but when i go to songs of ataullah khan ,nusrat fateh ali khan ,abida parveen,,,THEN I THINK F*** HATE….”WE ARE BROTHERS”…

xxx xxx

New Delhi

 

RIP Jagjit Singh

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Posted by Sidhu | Posted in Music | Posted on 10-10-2011

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“kaun sahab nu aakhe ke inj nahi inj kar”

(Literal translation is: Who can dare tell God that do it like this, not like that ?)

How truly someone has put it in just a few words.

A very very sad day for music and the music lovers. The “one man army”, the captain of Indian Ghazal singing Jagjit Singh is no more. And even sadder is the thing that there is no-one to carry forward his legacy. His untimely demise marks the end of an era in the Indian music. There is no one like him, of the same status, same repute. In our sub continent also, there are very few names; Mehdi Hasan already stopped singing due to his health. At this moment the singing in 2 countries was being headed by Ghulam Ali & Jagjit Singh and one of them just left us. I can’t describe in words what a tremendous loss it is. Only a month back, we saw him perform live with Ghulam Ali and I was not at all happy with his performance and complained a lot about it. Because I wanted him to sing the classics he created. I feel lucky to have seen him perform live thrice in my life. I can’t just accept that he is no more with us.

Whose live show we are gonna attend now ?

Who will sing ghazals like Jagjit Singh ?

Posting some of my most favourite ghazals sung by him. Let us remember our hero and pray for the peace of his soul. Rest in Peace Mr Jagjit Singh !

agar hum kahein aur woh muskara dein

suntay hain ke mil jati hai

sar jhukaoge to pathar bhi devta ho jayega

kabhi yun bhi to ho

Quality of Service #fail

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Posted by Sidhu | Posted in Random | Posted on 04-07-2010

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Me and my roomie went to KFC yesterday and ordered 2 burgers and a PEPSI & another drink (hey it was mango krusher :D , an overpriced mango shake in simple language ;)   ). There was not much rush but even then it took around 20 mins or so to get the order. I was just wondering that how the quality of service at these western outlets (I think, it holds true for some hi-fi Indian restaurants as well) like KFC, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, mix veg style food courts etc etc sucks big time as compared to our very own desi dhabaz. It is almost a very regular thing that they will take good 15 mins to take your order, will take another half an hour to serve it and there are around 25% or so chances that they will not serve the right order. And never forget the time required to get the bill, pay it and get your card or balance back !

On the other side, take our very own dhabaz. Pretty good of them always have full halls to serve. Even then they manage to take everyone’s order in 5 mins, get back to you in another 5 and that too with the right order. I started my first job in Mohali and there was very famous Khalsa Dhaba in Phase 5. In the morning & evening it always used to be full and i can bet that you will never sit in waiting state and seeing that nobody is there to take your order, you have sabzi but not chapati etc etc. And one guy, after taking orders from 5 or 6 tables, will manage to get all the things right and also tell the guy sitting at the counter that on which table what order was served (including number of chapatiz !!!).

So what exactly makes this difference ? And the difference is not slight; it is huge ! For me personally, it gets even irritating to wait so much !

Trained India !

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Posted by Sidhu | Posted in India | Posted on 08-05-2010

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While reading editorials one thing that always strikes my mind is that what part of it is close to truth and what part is just what the writer thinks. A week back or so i read an article in Times of India and it just made me almost go mad. So to release some frustration ;) and comment on what the reality is, thought of writing a post. I am just taking quotes from the article and posting comments on them. Your comments are welcome ;) 

Back in 2002, India claimed to produce 350,000 engineers per year. But this included “diploma engineers” who were not true engineers at all. India actually had only 102,000 real engineering graduates in 2002. This went up to 222,000 in 2006 and may be double that in 2011.

Yes ! That was dependent upon number of colleges. When IT was booming after recession in 2004, Comp Engg was a hot cake so Engg College an awesome business. That is what gave rise to opening of engineering colleges like karyana shops.

India does have some excellent engineering schools, but McKinsey estimates that only 25% of Indian engineering graduates are good enough to work for multinationals (and only 15% of finance graduates and 10% of those with degrees of any kind).

Yes true again because these are not collegses. There are currency printing shops. They are charging high fees and collecting some good money. Who cares about the quality and standard of the education provided ?

Yet in 2007, India’s five largest IT services companies added 120,000 engineering jobs, and IBM and Accenture added another 14,000. Pharma R&D companies boomed. And foreign car companies made India an export and R&D hub to capitalize on its engineering skills.

Because the IT work was being outsourced to India like anything and Indian companies needed to show employee strength to catch those projects. They needed the head count and the easiest way to get that was to go to campus and hire masses.

In recruitment, Indian companies stopped looking at resumes. Good resumes often reflect an ability to write good resumes, not real skills. Instead, Indian companies put applicants through psychometric tests and rigorous interviews to identify general abilities and aptitude, rather than specialized skills. Instead of hiring only from elite engineering colleges, companies like Infosys and TCS recruited from second- and third-tier colleges, and also from arts and science schools.

Bullshit ! Perhaps, except top institues like IIT and others, where else the graduates know how to make their CVs. Almost all of them look the same, talking about some small projects done there and other academic details.

Multinationals preferred to recruit people with established skills. But Indian companies realized that recruits had to be trained from scratch. Many companies virtually became universities, employing hundreds of trainers.The Infosys Global Education Centre at Mysore trains 13,500 people at a time. For arts and science recruits, TCS provides an additional three months of training. In all, many recruits get four to seven months of training before starting work.

So, as per the author, this is the real juice but in reality its such a superior quality bullshit that you won’t believe it. First thing, only biggies can afford to send people on tranings for months (And boy that has been reduced to 1/3 or less, in the name of cost cutting). Second important thing is that in which company people are trained & made to work on the same technology ? Whatever little i have come across in 6 years of my careers is that A is trained on Technology X, made to work on Y; B is trained on Y made to work on Z; C is trained on Z, made to sit on bench. Where the heck do you see that knowledge grabbed from the tranining being used ? Its almost nowhere. And id you saw it somewhere, that must be accidental.

This would be impossibly expensive in the West. It is economic in India. Thus, low-cost training has been transformed into an international advantage, giving India a competitive edge in high-tech exports.

Cheap labor ! Thats it !

Training is a continuous process, not just in technical issues but also in management skills, quality consciousness, communications, foreign language and personal-effectiveness skills. Companies commonly mandate one to four weeks of yearly training. The career development and salaries of staff are linked to skills acquired from training. Mentorship by senior executives is another key Indian practice. Cadence India has a “leaders-as-teachers” program: every manager must spend one to two weeks teaching internal classes. Even the CEO is not exempt.

What the heck ?

Managers are groomed through fast-track programs for the best-performing employees, who then get preference for promotion. Once, Indian companies desperately sought foreign-returned managers. Today, they can find better talent locally. Returnees from abroad can have a hard time getting a good job.

Hahaha..lol…

Employees get reviewed at the end of every project and are prescribed training if found to have weaknesses. Mechanisms such as 360-degree reviews (wherein you review your bosses and peers) and balanced scorecard reviews are widely used.

360 degree reviews ? Dude say something against your manager and see your rating. You would come to know what this 360 degree shit is !!!

Managers are evaluated on a variety of non-financial measures, including employee satisfaction, attrition rates and mentoring.

Another factor that is missed is that how much a manager can butter his boss !

The software industry complains of a high attrition rate — up to 30% employees leave every year. But this means that companies end up training people not just for themselves but for the whole industry. That is one more secret of India’s success.

Money dude ! People can get good money by changing jobs every year. So that drives the attrition rates !

Enough of crap. No more energy left in me. So leaving it here for your judgment considering what the reality is !

And see; this article was published in Times of India, India’s so called No 1 English newspaper. And someone who is not aware of the actual situation in Indian IT would think that don’t know what kind of high-tech rocket making India was into ;) .