My Dear friend, This is India

This blog is a collection of events that happened during one of my longest train journeys.

I was waiting for the Nagarcoil express - 16351 (Mumbai to Nagarcoil via Pune via Trichy) at the Pune station, feeling irritated thinking of the long journey ahead. As the train arrived, I checked the charts eagerly to see any female companion of my age near my seat. 

Having been disappointed again, I cursed my luck, boarded the train and arranged my luggage. 

The train started at 5.00 PM and within minutes of start of the train, a family approached me and requested  me to shift to the other 3AC coach, as they had got tickets split in both of the 3AC coaches. Thought lazy to change the coach, I still felt happy as I realized that there might be a chance to meet a female companion next to my seat. Seems unlucky guys are always unlucky, as the scenario remained the same in other coach too.

It was 9PM in the night.

Having chatted with the family for a long time, I went out to stand near the door and was just listening to the chat between the coach attendants. Hope most of you know that 3AC coaches are accompanied by coach attendants, whose responsibility is to give the bedding items.

The lady from the family came out and asked the attendant for a bedsheet. As the bedsheet was handed over to her, she started arguing with the attendant to give a neat and clean bedsheet. It was a white bedsheet, but due to repeated usage, the colour has slightly faded from it. But it was fresh and neatly ironed; still she wanted a fresh white bedsheet, not like the faded one that has been given to her just now.

The lady passenger argued and added that she would complain to the TC (Ticket Checker) for not issuing a fresh one. By this time, the attendant lost his patience and told her to go ahead and complain. As the lady passenger realized that argument is of no use, she took the besheet and went to her seat.

Her actions took me by surprise, as while we were talking inside, she was complaining that it is difficult for India to develop because of unwanted behaviour of people and now she is doing exactly the same!!!!

Isn’t the lady passenger asking for too much of comfort when travelling in a public transport? She could have paid money for her travel, still she should not have argued, as this is the maximum care that the railways could provide. She could have easily taken the bedsheet and left the scene at the very first moment, rather than having an argument.

Oh man, now I realized. We are living in India and it is not an unusual thing, if people speak in one way, but behaves in a completely different manner.

As I entered the coach, a passenger approached me enquiring whether the plug point near my seat is working or not. Even though I didn’t use the plug point till that point of the journey, I assured him that it would work and plugged his charger. To my dismay, it didn’t work and told him to try charging in the next coach.

Instead, he called the attendant and asked him to repair the plug point. The facial expression of the attendant showed the shock he had just got by such a request. As the attendant was explaining that he do not know how to repair, the dissatisfied passenger immediately replied, “I am going to complain to the Ticket Checker (TC)”

This time, it was me who was shocked rather than the attendant. What on earth an attendant who deals with bedsheet has got to do with electric repairs. The person who was arguing with the attendant looked like an educated guy and doesn’t he have common sense to think that an attendant cannot deal with this electrician type works.

Just because we have paid money to travel, it doesn’t mean that we own the train and can complain about anyone, for whatsoever issues we have. Feeling exhausted on just looking at the two incidents, I just wondered at the plight of attendant as how many passengers he has to encounter in his train journeys. It seems he is used to it and takes everything as just another argument and moves on.

May be none of the passengers has really complained to the TC or even if they had complained, it didn’t bother him much!!!! 

I was curious and asked the attendant whether he is not irritated by these incidents. He smiled and replied , "My Dear friend, This is India"!!!!

I went to sleep, awaiting eagerly for the next day expecting some interesting incidents.

Day2

As I was listening to songs, the train halted at Tirupati. I got down the train to stretch a bit to get rid of laziness. 

People got down from the train hurriedly and swarmed the dosa shop on the platform like a swarm of flies around a fruit. Everyone was busy buying dosa and few of them told the vendor to pour additional sambar.

While the passengers carried the paper plate to the coach, sambar started spilling on the platform. Even though the passengers are aware of this, they just didn’t care about it and started walking away. It was not the case with few passengers, but with more than 75% of the passengers, who got down from the coach.

The way the people behaved made me to think whether they are trying to clean the platform with sambar.

If the same thing happened in their home, wouldn’t they clean the place immediately? Just because it’s a railway platform, it doesn’t mean that they have all the rights to dirty it.

Why don’t they understand, that they have equal responsibility in keeping public places clean? The looks given by the people around conveyed the message, "My Dear friend, This is India"!!!

As I was looking at the dirty platform, the train started moving again. I entered the train and took a paper and a pen and started scribbling the rough draft of this blog. I got down at trichy, feeling happy to have added one more blog to my kitty.

It took me two months after the train journey to convert the rough draft to a fair one, after looking at the competition (Around the World with Expedia!) conducted by Expedia (http://www.expedia.co.in/)  in Indiablogger.

திருமணம்

கதிரவன் மெதுவாக எட்டி பார்த்த வண்ணம் இருக்க

பறவைகள் இறை தேட கிளம்பிய வண்ணம் இருக்க

அமைதியின் உருவமாய் இருந்த அந்த வீதியையே 

உலுக்கி எழுப்பியது அந்த கல்யாண மண்டபம்!!!!

ஒரு பக்கமோ உற்றார் உறவினர் கூடிய வண்ணம் இருக்க

மறு பக்கமோ நண்பர்கள் கூடிய வண்ணம் இருக்க

மணமகளாக தங்கள் குழந்தையை பார்த்த 

பெற்றோரோ, எண்ணற்ற மகிழ்ச்சியுடன் நின்றிருந்தனர்!!!!

மேலத் தாளங்கள் முழங்கிய வண்ணம் இருக்க

கடிகாரமோ முஹுர்த்த நேரத்தை தொட்டிருக்க

கெட்டி மேளம் என ஐயர் குரல் எழுப்ப 

மன்னவன் அவள் கழுத்தில் மாங்கள்யம் கட்டினான்!!!!

As you like it!!!!!

Life is the most precious gift given to a human being. It depends upon the perception of the individual to make it easier or difficult to live in. Even though each individual has their own way of pursuing his/her life, the competition of survival plays a spoilsport upon these thoughts. We try to imitate others or live the life of others, thereby making one’s own life miserable. 

The tagline “Survival of the Fittest” has taken deep roots in everyone’s mind and this act as a trigger in all the activities done by an individual. What has started as a healthy competition is slowly affecting the individual psychologically, which automatically increases the already existing mechanical life.

Every second that got over just now becomes past. It is good to remember the past but bad to live life thinking about the past. Life is full of challenges that include both positive and negative sides. Accept the negative feedback and work upon them to make them positive and try to capitalize upon the positive feedback. Think of the future. By future, I mean the very next second. Does anyone know as what is going to happen in the future? Does anyone have control over the future? None other than the maker can control it.

It is time for each individual to take a break and think about their life. Every individual is the owner of their respective life and responsible for his/her well being. 

Who else is better to judge an individual other than the self? Rather than living a life by thinking about the past or by thinking about the future, the essence of life can best be understood by living the present in the way he/she likes it.

Be optimistic. Accept the failures and weakness. Accepting the weakness is in itself an added strength. Never allow criticism to affect your mind. Be ready to face criticism. Be yourself. Every individual has a unique quality which can best be understood by behaving in their own, rather than imitating others. We are waging a war against time, by sacrificing the happiness in one’s life. Before acting upon others advice, analyse whether the change is worth taking.

It’s our life. Making it good or bad depends upon our reaction towards various situations. Do not live for others. Live the life as you like it. 

Education over the years in TN - Part 2

Click Part - 1 to read the first part, before continuing with Part-2.

The education system changed, but did it really meet our expectations?

As years passed by, the first change came in the form of removal of entrance examinations for the admission to colleges (medical and engineering). 

I was really shocked, as entrance exams are a means to test the competitive ability of the students and the system wants to kill the competitive spirit at the very beginning of the student’s career.

The worst part about the selection criteria is, when two or more students have the same criteria in every qualification (cut-off marks for the various subjects as prescribed) which the system expects, the allocation of seat is done on the basis of Date of Birth.

Is this a criterion to decide on the future of a student? Is it a sin that student2 was born after Student1?

As usual protests erupted to reinstate the entrance exam. The system had its counter-argument stating that the rural students do not get the opportunity and same education as that of urban students and this is the better way to create equal opportunities for them.

Whose mistake is this, if students in urban area gets more opportunity than rural?

Just because few people in the system are lazy and do not want to take efforts to develop rural areas, will they start adopting backward integration?


The protest fell on deaf ears as the entrance exam pattern was completely abolished.


Is this a positive change??? Never, not even in the slightest of my dreams. 

The odds did not stop at the entrance exams. As years rolled by, change was brought in the syllabus being suggested to school children from 1^st standard to 12^th standard. The syllabus was decreased when compared to the previous years, thus impairing the roots of education.

This consideration was done based on the fact that equal education should be provided across the state, whether it be rural or urban area. 
If equal opportunity has to be provided, why not the infrastructure be provided to rural areas and improve the quality of education being provided to them? This shows the inconsistency of the system to function properly. 


This has taken away the opportunity for the students to learn the basics in their respective subjects. Even though people know that these drastic steps decrease the quality of education than improving, still they do not give a damn to it.

The worst part of this type of education is the lack of practical knowledge. Our students have bookish knowledge and the question papers are nothing but a repetitive of questions, which has been taught in class. Even a slight deviation or twist in the questions, would make the students to score less marks or even fail, which indicates how the education has ruined the thinking capabilities of the students.

The fundamentals should be instilled in the minds right from the young age itself. Not all people are born creative. It is their environment that makes them to think creative. One part of this environment is the education. 
Our education system is framed in such a way that “Out of the box thinking” is discouraged right from their childhood.

I am not against the upliftment of education in rural areas. I am here to support the improvements that need to be done in rural areas to catch up with the urban areas. The system should think of ways to implement an improved education system in rural areas in a phased manner, rather than degrading the quality of the education as a whole.

With an education system as such existing in the state, can we expect the future of the students to be good enough to cope up with the challenges?

Education over the years in TN - Part 1

Having seen the change in education system over the years in Tamil Nadu, I got that inner urge to write this blog.

It was the year 2002. We have completed 12^th standard and there were a bunch of guys (including me), who wanted to pursue their career in medicine. We prepared for our Tamil Nadu entrance exams and due to additional awareness, we got to know about the existence of medical colleges across India such as AFMC, AIMS, JIPMER. As any other aspirants would do, we applied for those exams and even bought books to prepare for those exams.

We were very confident enough to excel well in those exams, as we considered the syllabus for biology in our education system to be vast. 

To our dismay, we were not even able to answer 10% of the questions mentioned in those books. The syllabus given in those books looked like French & German to us, as the biology syllabus in those books was way ahead of what we studied in our state syllabus.

There, we realized the difference between the real (education outside TN) and imaginary (education in TN) world. What we consider as too much of syllabus in TN is nothing but a meagre syllabus for a student outside TN. Still we prepared and wrote those exams, but never cleared any of those, as “hinky pinky ponky” technique never helps you in the real world.

In marketing, we have a famous term named “Moment of Truth” – The time when the customer forms his opinion about the firm, when he interacts with the products of the firm. Moment of Truth for us is the interaction with the medical exams of the real world and we realized that we were “Kinathu thavalai (Frog in a well – A frog inside a well thinks that there doesn’t exist a world beyond the well)” till then.

Once the results for the entrance exams were out, we faced the truth that it is time to change the ambition of your life. This, not only happened with us, but with many other fellow students, who appear for 12^th standard exams every year. We did not had the guts to study for an additional year to prepare for the exams again, as it is considered a curse, as every other person whom you can find, whether educated or not, would advice you saying that you have wasted a year. 

We expected the mindset of the people to change over the years, thereby giving rays of hope to the education system.

As expected our education system changed, but ………..


Click Part-2 to read the continuation.

கண்ணாலனே!!!!!!

அந்தி மாலை பொழுது
கதிரவன் தன் பிம்பங்களை உள்ளிழுத்த பொழுது
வெள்ளை சட்டை போட்ட உருவமாக சந்திரன் எட்டி பார்த்த பொழுது
தலைவி தன் முகம் வாடி கடல் நோக்கி அமர்ந்திருந்தாள்...


கடமை தனை வா என அழைக்க
மறுக்க முடியாத மன்னவனோ, கடல் தாண்டி சென்றுள்ளான்....


உடலோ இக்கறை இருக்க
மனமோ அக்கறை இருந்த வண்ணம்
எங்கோ அடித்த மணிக்கு
தன் தொலைபேசியோ என ஏக்கத்துடன் பார்த்தாள் தலைவி!!!!!!

Need of the hour!!!!!! Nuclear power or Nature???

Maslow, in his hierarchy of needs suggested the first and the basic need of human beings as the physiological needs (Food, cloth, shelter). The way we are living, I think, Mr. Maslow forgot to add electricity as one among the basic needs.

We have moved ahead of time in such a way that life without electricity would become meaningless. Human beings are trying all their means to generate electricity in all possible ways they can. With the depletion of non-renewable sources, the alternate for electricity came in the form of Nuclear power. Developing nations are trying their level best to co-ordinate with the developed nations to obtain fuel and equipments to set-up nuclear facility.

Not far behind, India is catching up the race to set up its very own nuclear plants. Nuclear power is the fourth largest source of electricity generator in our country. Even though it is an achievement to be proud about, we have forgotten to look at the negative side of it.

How many of us are aware of the real scenario regarding the Koodankulam and Jaitapur Nuclear power plant?

After the assessment of facilities, livelihood and having obtained the consent of the ministries, it was decided to set-up nuclear facilities in these areas.

A nuclear plant in partnership with Russia was proposed to be built in Koodankulam, a small village with a population of 70,000 in and around the place. 

It is located at the Gulf of Mannar, one of the richest bio-diversity areas of the world. 

Like any nuclear reactor, they also need Freshwater for its functioning along with seawater to cool down the reactors.

Disadvantage of setting a nuclear plant in this area would be the livelihood of people getting affected. The houses need to be relocated and people have to shift their place of living to far-off places from the plant. Also, fisherman has to discontinue their only income of fishing, as the seawater would not be a habitat for fishing due to the release of water from this plant. The difficulties faced by the people in these areas could be manageable, as the government would arrange for alternate ways for their existence.

Another nuclear plant under the scanner is the Jaitapur Nuclear plant, which is built in coalition with the French government.

 As we all know, the Jaitapur plant is situated in the eco-sensitive coastal Maharashtra region. 

The environmental ministry has cleared the proposal for building this power plant, ignoring the consequences of the nature. 

One of the commonly known norms for any nuclear site is the earthquake factor. Even though the proposed site has a severe threat of earthquake, still the environmental ministry has given a nod to go ahead.

Hope the ministry considered the threat of earthquakes, while giving a nod to this proposal. Even though the nod from the ministry came before the disaster of Japan, has the ministry revisited its approval afterwards?

Even the formation of human chain and demonstration by environmentalist during the visit of French president Nicolas Sarkozy, had no consequences. The protest by green peace activist and environmentalist fell on deaf ears, as the government went ahead with its proposal.

If my writing has suggested that am against the setting of nuclear plants, I would say sorry for creating such an impression. Like any other soul on earth, it is difficult for me to stay without electricity even for a short period of time and I accept the benefits of building a nuclear power. I am also a great supporter of nuclear power for our country.

But, my angst is on the fact that nature gets destroyed, which leads to the imbalance in the ecosystem.

What about the trees and plants that would be destroyed in this process?

What about the bio-life that would be destroyed by these power plants? 

Just because they cannot express their views, it doesn’t mean that we can exploit it to the fullest. It is understood that unless nature is destroyed at a certain place, nuclear power will remain a dream. But, what is the recovery process we have adopted to recreate nature at other places?

Do we have a process in place to build or develop nature at different places?

We have seen ‘n’ number of proposals regarding creation of nuclear plants or infrastructures, but how many proposals have we come across, which speaks about the development of nature?

It is time for us to realize that we are becoming victims of our own actions.

Better late than never…….

Rather than pondering upon the destruction, let’s try to re-build or re-create the nature at alternate places for the betterment of environment.