The Revenge of the Ego

Its appaling how at times people tend to underestimate you. Just the fact that you have not tried something before doesnot give one the liberty of underestimating your potential. In such circumstances as I have so aptly been in the recent past the mind behaves in a manner that I have presented in this post.

The first reaction is that of a non-believer. Mind resents or rather the ego resents you from believing what the other person is mentioning. This set your mood off and hence work takes a back seat and you would rather think about the reason for the underestimation.



The next phase is thus born in which your mind plays with your ego. It makes you believe that the other person is right and that there are things that you are not capable of. This state of mind is even more harmful for work and work becomes a thing of the past and huge workload piles up.
What follows is depression of why am I unable to do certain things. And the ego gets all its bruises in this phase when the mind reminds the ego of apt number of examples from the past as and when you had been unsuccessful.

When the ego has had its share of beating there comes its revenge of doing the same thing that you had been accussed that you are incapable of. And then when the challenge is set for the ego....and another one rises for the mind when it watches the ego taking over and completing the task. The new challenge for the mind is to find out reasons that led to your success and to praise the ego and to learn the lesson that is not to underestimate the ego.

The Official Head of the State, who's next?

The biggest debate at the moment is who will e the next President of India. A question that Dr. Rajendra Prasad would never have dreamed would be the hot topic for all kinds of opinion polls and debate shows. But the question is not who would be the next President but whether he would be someone with a political background or not.

For those who are not aware the President is elected by people's representatives. Simply putting it all members of the lower and upper houses of all the states as well as Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha vote to elect the President. The candidates well they are the candidates that are backed by political parties. So they not only choose the candidates but also elect the one they feel is best suited for the job.

Currently the people who are the biggest candidates (as in accordance to the various news channels) are namely:

1. Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam
2. Bhairon Singh Shekhawat
3. Somnath Chatterjee
4. A K Antony
5. Narayan Murthy (though not really)
6. Amartya Sen (similar as above)

A little details about the various candidates.

Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam, the person presently holding the post. Ideally the best man for the job and also the least likely to be elected (though I can bet that he may not even be put up as a candidate). An eminent scientist and probably the wisest of all the mentioned candidates. But sensing the atmosphere and being disgruntled over his hands being tied by the government during his tenure, he may simply just bow out of the office without even trying his luck at the office for a second term.

Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, the present Vice-President and an ex-BJP politician. He would like to continue the trend of Vice-Presidents converting into Presidents as in the past. Although an ex-BJP politician, has little chances of being the candidate of the BJP, who would like to back Abdul Kalam if he is interested. But Congress may agree to back him as their candidate.

Somnath Chatterjee, the present speaker of the Lok Sabha, he follows a popular following by various politicians and would probably be the choice candidate of Congress, if it doesnot back Shekhawat.

A K Antony, the current defence minister. Has just come on the national scene as a minister and has slim chances of being even proposed as a candidate. His "clean" image is probably his biggest USP.

Narayan Murthy, the ex-CEO of Infosys. A person that the Indian middle class idolises and is probably the person responsible for internationalising Bangalore. His recent stints and outspokenness against the government shows his interest towards the post i.e. he wants to be popular now.

Dr. Amartya Sen, a nobel laureate and an economist at par. But would not be interested for the job.

But whatever be the choiced candidate of the governement or the opposition, the government has surely learnt one thing amd i.e. not to let a person without any political leanings to the office. Taking the example of our present President, he defied all limits that previous Presidents had set. Kalam has had his set of confrontations eith the government but due to the limitations of the powers of the post has not been able to make much difference. But his activeness to make a difference is a lesson that should be learnt from.

He had defied the government and the system on various occasions by being an example. Seeing this the government has learnt its lesson and will try to curb such a situation in the future by not electing a "wise" President. But with him leaving the post the situation will again go back to what it was earlier.

The problem is that even though people try to set an example, a very few people learn from it. President Kalam had on many occasions sent out message to the general public through his speeches, his books etc. But the outcome I am not sure that there will be any. People will do their own jobs when he moves out of the office and some puppet of the government takes his place. The fact remains that people will not do anything to change the situation.

A CPI(M) M.P. vividly told a TV show host that who will bw the next President will be ours (the people in power) decision and nothing will change with you holding opinion polls and people sending SMSs to show their choice. He is right in a way. It is the fault of us, the urban middle class. We don't exercise our right to vote and worse we donot want to enter politics to make a change. The usual reply is that politics is a sewer, but my question is who is responsible in creation of this sewer. It is us. Not only we donot except our mistakes we keep on repeating it. Change doesnot happen on its own. If you can't change yourself please donot complain about the system, for the system is because of you and not the other way round.

Jai Hind!

Stranger than Fiction

Well this is an incident that happened to the grandfather of a friend. Now this man(the grandfather) was in service with the Indian Railways post independence. This incident occured when he was posted as a station master to a far off station in some village. I am not too sure of the geographical details but here is the story( I am going to tell the incident in first person)::

India was at war, yes it was the Indo-Pak war. The village was very deeply located, so deep that many people had forgotten about its existence. And those who did well the war had brought on too many things to help them forget of its existence. But well anyways I was posted here and doing my duty. Not many trains arrived or left the station, just a few goods train here and there and well a passenger train once in a while. The station was usually empty, and that was one of the reasons I was surprised to see this old man on the station this morning. He had a very expression-less, wrinkled face. You get to see more of wrinkles on the faces of villagers in India, partly due to the fact that they worked all day long in the fields and partly because thay had seen too many dreams getting squashed and too many promises made to them had been broken. But still hope lingered on.

Anyways this old villager in ragged and dirty clothes walked towards me. He had three pink coloured papers in his hand. Well these coloured papers were very commom these days and I recognised them very well, they were the telegrams. They were perhaps one of the ways that the headquarters could actually contact me since the nearest telephone was miles away. Anyway as he approached me, my eyes kept moving towards those telegrams, the source of all the good and sad news that need to be told immediately.

"Sahib", he called me, "could you please read these out to me." There were three telegrams in his wrinkled and sun-burnt hands. "Sure", I said. I took the telegrams from his hand and started reading them, inorder to understand and translate the contents to him in his native language. The first one read, "Regret to inform you the desmise of your son, Sp. Mahinder Singh STOP He died in action STOP." The second one read, "Regret to inform you the desmise of your son, Hav. Bhagat Singh STOP He died in action STOP." By the time I came to the third one my hands were already shivering. The third one read what I had feared "Regret to inform you the desmise of your son, Hav. Ram Singh STOP He died in action STOP." Now my whole body was shaking as the old man looked up expectantly towards me. How could I tell him such a heavy news. Nothing is more sad as news than to hear the news of the death of your son.

Keeping a control over my nerve I broke the news to him. I had expected him to break down or faint down. But nothing of that sort happened, he took the news unexpectadely well. I asked him if he was alright and and without any emotion in his voice, he replied while taking the telegrams from my hand, " I am alright Sahib, you need not worry. They have died for their country. I have lost three sons. But I have two more and am waiting expectedly so that they grow up soon so that they too can join the army." I was left speechless as the old man walked away.

The Great Indian Middle Class--??

Its been abt 7 to 8 years now since the economy actually opened up to foreign investments(although officially in 1994). Since the rise of number of opportunities in the Indian "MNC" industry there has been a rise in a totally new genre of people and section of the society. The timid Indian middle class has attained a much more high profiled and what the call a "great" status. This greatness is all due to the opportunities given to the middle class because of large number of jobs in the private sector. Now the rise in these jobs has sent a new message into the society, i.e. study well and get some great degrees to get tagged along with your name and you will have enough money to blow your minds off. Not realising that the work that they do is actually going for the upliftment and the profit of big corporations that are the native of some other country. But this should not bother them for the salary reaches into the bank account on the last day of the month.

But in all this money minting scenario somewhere this suddenly risen class has forgotten its roots. It tends to move away from its own lifestyle to that of the so called "western" lifestyle. Some people may be offenced by the name that I have given to the lifestyle. So being politically very correct I will name it as the "corporate" lifestyle. Now the basic feature of this corporate lifestyle is to work for 5 days a week and party for the rest of the week. The work part may not be true but the party factor is a must. For if you don't then you are outcasted (now this is a feature that my fellow country men or the whole world have not forgotten or can never be taken out of them) and considered wierd.

The great Indian middle class now prefers to spend off their holidays in a suttle and quiet place rather than sitting home. They tend to have forgotten the necessity to work for the society and to work to improve it. Ofcourse this scenario tends to naturally turn opposite if you get a chance to be on the Page 3 of a famous daily. But the point is if you are earning all the money that you could not even have dreamed of then please make it a poiunt to give something back to society. For it is this society that has helped you rise and provided you with what you call the basic ammenities. Work towards making a difference rather than just sitting ona beach and sipping martinis and enjoying your weekend.