Ayudha Puja

Various subcultures in India have various Gods to invoke in order to take care of all things dealing with machines. In the north and east people celebrate Vishwakarma Puja. In the South, especially in Karnataka, folks perform the Ayudha Puja.

When I bought my car in 2003 I also hired a driver with it. I didn't want to swear a lot before starting out with work on a regular basis. Come Dusshera he insisted that I take our car to the temple and get it sanitised just so that evil stays out of the way. I reluctantly followed his advice that year and the next year and the next. However, over the three years my driver caused about 5 minor and 3 major accidents mostly by violating basic road rules like forgetting about the concept of right of way. Fixing these caused my insurance rate to go up and I had to incur a lot of out of pocket expenses too. Its not that I did not cause any accidents - these incidents (if you will), however, did not cause my purse as much harm.

Here's what I'd like to propose. Since the RTO officials are not ready to do their job properly and give licenses only to those who know how to drive I think its time for the Gods to take over. Every time someone takes his car to the temple to get Ayudha puja done I propose that the priest baptising the car ask the driver 10 questions about prevalent road rules and if he is not able to answer atleast 6 of them correctly the priest should dissuade God from blessing the car and the driver. We shouldn't mix religion and politics but hell no one said we can't mix religion and policies.

The boy who fell in the borewell.

It was a dull day as far as the newsmongers were concerned. No terrorist attacks, no terrorist captured, no minister caught on tape accepting bribes, and no communist strangulation of the UPA government. All of a sudden a 5 year old boy, Prince, falls into a borewell. Finally they have news to report. Its all been on live TV since then. Makes you think that without news channels no work gets done in this country. I think the army would have done their job even if all the cameras and Hooda (the CM) never showed up. How a borewell was left open is a whole other story.

After seeing this sea of humans who had gathered to rescue a single child I was vividly reminded of an event that happened when I was around 6 and at my granny's place. Its a quaint little town (not quaint as in gay) in Assam. There were all kinds of birds from storks to owls to sparrows. On a weekend (I remember it was a wekeend because my mother was home that day) a yellow baby bird landed up in our living room by mistake. It looked like a type of sparrow. It looked so cute that I caught the bird and put it in a cage. No sooner had I mentioned my accomplishment to my aunt everybody in the house had gathered around the bird.

After a while we heard birds chirping ceaselessly outside. On opening the doors and windows it was a sight I had never seen before. About 500 yellow sparrows of the same variety I had caught were looking for their lost friend. After a lot of pleading from my family members I finally let the little one go. Withing 15 minutes all those birds were gone.

Looking at all these people gather around while the army was digging Prince out I couldn't help but compare the similarity between those birds that day and these humans today. There is a very strong bond between living beings of the same species irrespective of whether they are mammals or amphibians.

My reservations on this issue.

You must have read the story about someone asking for reservation in cricket. Atleast one bowler should be from SC/ST and one from OBC.

My take on this is issue is a bit different. Since the total adds up to 100% and our government claims to know the number of SC/ST/OBCs by simple arithmetic they should be able to find out the number of UC (upper caste people). Let that be set as the quota percentage for the UC folks. They have handled the intellectual and moral burden of this country for too long and need to be given a break. Let the rest of the folks (SC/ST/OBC/ADD_SOME_MORE) be given the rest of the seats in every government institution, educational institution or otherwise.

This will bring about equilibrium in our society. The UCs will start relaxing and thinking of themselves as half humans who really need reservations in order to do anything meaningful with their lives. This will bring them closer to the mentality of existing reserved categories. The exiting reserved categories will find a reason to compete as they would be the new general category. They may starting thinking like humans and move intellectually closer to todays general category. This will pull the two groups of (more or less) humans closer to one another and create an India with a fair amount of mental equilibrium.

I have one problem with those upper caste teachers in the creamy institutions of our country. All those institutions whos name starte with an I. They seem to think that subjects cannot be taught to less bright students. I think the problem lies with them not making an attempt to make the courses more palatable to the so called stupid folks.

Monsoon is here

It arrived before time this year. Bangalore is at is best now. Its cool, breezy with occasional stack dumps from clouds moving northwards. Its that time of the year when you have to reach out for the light jacket from your closet.

I grew up in Shillong (which is quite close to Cherrapunji) and from June thru September it would just pour. Sometimes 3 to 4 inches each day for 15 days at a stretch. It was great because the city never flooded, all the water went down to Bangladesh and those poor fellows bore the brunt. Schools were never closed because if that became the norm we'd have a 3 month monsoon vacation too.

Monsoons in Bangalore is much more sedate much like everything else in this city. Up until a few years back things were not as bad. A tree or two would fall but you wouldn't get stuck in traffic for hours as it happened to me before the 2003 Diwali when I had gone to Hosur to get crackers at a discount. It rained on the way back and Hosur road (Bangalore's IT lifeline) was under water. Before Dharam Singh came to power it would not disrupt your life like it does in other parts of India unless you were conned by a builder to buy a flat or plot of land on a dry tank bed.

Hopefully there will be enough rains this year so that the Cauvery river can quench the thirst of a few of the folks in Tamil Nadu too...

I had started writing this blog just when the monsoons has started but could not complete it for various reasons...so far the monsoons have been good in Bangalore and Karnataka. The weather has been awesome. I am really beginning to like this city.

North East India?

A lot of you (mostly from the subcontinent) may be watching this program on Zee TV called Sa Re Ga Ma Pa. For the uninformed (I don't blame you) this a musical comptetion on TV where viewers get to choose their favorite singer.

Of late there has been a big hue and cry about the leading vote getter, Debojit. The issue, according to many, is that he is getting most of his votes from just one part of the country (the north-eastern part of India). It went to such an extent that in one episode three of the runner ups (till that stage of voting) staged an apparent walkout in protest. They were allegedly being threatened by ULFA to leave in order to ensure Debojit's victory. That begs the question: doesn't ULFA have anything better to do? Do they hang up their guns every Friday night, light a bonfire in the jungles of upper Assam and switch on their TV to watch who is winning this stupid programme?

Methinks that at the core of this issue lies the generally flawed perception of what is India (or atleast what it should be). North east India does not count as India in the minds of many people. Where were all of you when winners of Indian Idol and yet another stupid reality musical on Sony had winners completely based on regional votes?

May be thats why we have so many terrorists coming from that part of the country - you don't like them, why would they like you?

Curb your enthusaim folks, show some restraint - just like you want to stand up and be counted allow the others to be counted too. As for Debojit, I never voted for him but I will now just to prove a point.

Rang De Basanti

I saw Rang De Basanti on the 29th of Jan, 2006, a far cry from my desire to see it on the day of its release. The theatre that I go to was sold out by the time I reached the ticket counter. Anyway, its taken me about 2 weeks to find some time to write about the movie.

Immediately after I saw the movie I thought it was great. Even after 2 weeks I have similar feelings. The fact that the feeling has persisted over two weeks which is a really long time for someone like me could mean something - but then again this is just me.

The best thing about the movie, I thought, was the juxtaposition of the past and the present. Before 15th August 1947 we wanted to free ourselves from the Brits - now its the turn to free ourselves from the morons who rule us. At times you could hardly feel the difference. I always believed you are who you elect - yes, we are a bunch of morons.

The other thing that struck me was the fact that we have directors who are willing to take on the establishment and we have an establishment which is willing to let the country see its flaws. There is hope that one day we could have some real freedom of expression.

One more thing. Can Menaka Gandhi not back off once in a while? Whats her problem? Is she not able to appreciate the difference between art and reality?

My First Blog

I wanted to start my life as a blogger by writing a review of Rang De Basanti but couldn't wait any longer due to peer pressure. Lots of folks I know, some of whom I call friends, have their own blogs.

My old buddy, lets call him poweryogi, who never shys away from experimenting seems to have found his religion in blogging. My collegue Prasant has one too - he has had one for a while. So does Muthu.