India

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. ...

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

“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. ...

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 ! ...

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 ;) ...

I wanted to write this post in some different way but, just a change of mind. Now i will just post what i saw. Today we went to the International Book Fair at Pragati Maidan. Few of the observations: At none of the gate it was mentioned that where the tickets were available and from which gate was the entry for book fair. As far as i am aware this information is not available online as well. After entering from the main gate there was no information about in what all halls book stalls were being hosted ? No single board telling what all publishers were there. There are maps near landmarks in the province (but some of them probably without “You are here” mark) telling about the locations of various halls but after reaching in front of a hall, you wont be able to tell anything about it as there is not a single board telling about its name or number. There was no question of any support staff being there/helping you. Least number of sign-boards so that you take the longest route for reaching from one place to another. Every possible eatable thing was over-priced. (An OK types paneer kulcha for Rs 40 and a plate of gol-gappas (6 pieces) for Rs 15). May be i am missing something…for now…that is it ! ...

Have you ever observed that the feeling of slavery (in Indians) has not completely gone ? It still runs in our blood. That pleasing-the-master feeling, habits and the nature just don’t away. Being in corporate sector, I can relate it to so many things happening daily. Just few of the common observations: How difficult it is to say NO to your boss ? How comfortable most of the people are in expressing their “personal life” needs ? How much buttering-of-the-boss happens in most of the companies ? How we never say NO to the client because he pays us ! How we are made to work on Saturdays, Sundays and late evenings and we don’t have the guts to say NO ! How we don’t have the guts to call a wrong a wrong ! How stupidly we think that if we don’t agree to what the guy sitting in front of us says, he will feel bad ! And so many other things. Is there a hope that India would get rid of all this ? ...

Actually Aman won the game and he posted it before me. So i am not going to talk about the usual stuff ;) . It was my long time wish to go to Vasant Vihar and see the Emporio Mall. There are 2 malls actually; one is DLF place and another Emporio Mall. DLF place, i would say is just like any other mall, hosting all the normal brands and all. As we all were first timers, we came out missing the hi-fi-ness about the place and then noticed the entrance to Emporio mall. Man it is, i guess the poshest mall in Delhi. The brands, restaurants and other stuff, i have almost never heard about. And the prices were totally jaw dropping. We had glimpse of all the three floors and each one was more amazing than the other. Finally feeling how rich India was, we came back smiling. Took an auto from there (oh yes we middle class, the mango people :) ) and reached home. ...

The complete title of the post is We Indians… Most of the time there are cars parked in front of our apartment and there is very little space to enter the door to stairs. Today when i came back from office and was entering the apartment there was an uncle standing with his back leaning with one of the cars and doing something on his mobile. There was hardly any space left to cross. Me and 2 of my roommates had to cross but that uncle didn’t move a bit but was rather doing left and right to make some space in pretty much ignorance. A thought hit me that how egoistic (or stupid ? ) we Indians are ? Just few of the things i observe almost daily: ...

A modified Bajaj Chetak scooter ;) Comments Comment by SK on 2009-04-21 15:15:41 +0530 scooter pe cycle jaise Sachin pe techi…..;) Comment by Vaibhav Garg on 2009-04-28 19:00:42 +0530 awesome picture