Life is…

The reservation issue was again in news in past few months as Gujjars were asking for reservation in Rajasthan. I won’t write whether gujjars were right or wrong in asking for reservation but lets talk about the reservation itself first.

I find this very idea of ‘cast based reservation’ stupid. It was a stupidity in the very first place. First thing you say people from some castes should be given some relaxation in the exams, admissions…whatsoever as they are financially weak and haven’t got access to all the facilities. Now are all the people from those castes same ? NO !

Second thing the people whom you leave in general section ? Are all of them able to provide their children with good education and facilities ? again NO !

So we talk about financial conditions of people but on the basis of their caste. How that is useful ?

Just an example. By now ( as it has been so many years since reservation system was put in place) how much percentage of people on administrative posts (IAS, IPS, PCS etc) has come through reservation system ? (no offenses intended here). May be 20-30% or more or less. Fine ! Now they can give all the facilities to their children but their children will again get admissions using their quota certificates. So what is the use ?

Once i heard that president K R Narayanan’s daughter got admission to IAS in some reserved quota (I have no proof, but there might be hundreds of such cases, if not this one). Now tell me was she really deprived of all the facilities ?

Another point is while admitting people to professional colleges for engineering, medical and other studies is it okay to relax in terms of score they get ? Recently someone on TV gave an example that lets say someone in your family was seriously ill, you took him to hospital. What would you think that a fully qualified doctor should take his case or the one who was not that intelligent but came through reservation ? Obvious answer is the qualified one. Then why reservation at every place ?

Helping poor people reach a standard in their life is not a problem. But it should have been implemented in some other manner like providing financial assistance to the people who were not able to bear the expenses of education. Giving them free books, education and other facilities. That too without saying what caste or class did they belong to.

The saddest part is that now this evil has been installed and its here to stay for always. No government is going to amend these laws as that would mean toppling of the government the very next day.

I have no hopes

Someone has rightly said “Money can’t buy happiness”. One may not believe this but watching 2 videos made my day and gave me a ton of happiness.

I stumbled upon one video of Musarat Nazir on youtube and then i saw mera long gwacha’s video, done by her on PTV in 1985-86. My lifetime favourite song which i have grown up listening to. The voice, tone ,music reminds of those beautiful old days. It used to play mostly on radio channels like Jalandhar, All India Radio and Lahore. When i got computer at home, i recorded this song by placing microphone near radio speaker and today i got to watch that video. Plain awesome…real singing with soul and emotions.

Then watched video of another favourite of mine chale to kat hi jeyga safar. Simply made my day !!!

Enjoy these videos:

It has been more than 50 years since we got freedom and we all are aware that politics and corruption have screwed up the whole system of India. I was watching a video by Shiv Khera where he calls to build a corruption free nation. A must watch for every Indian:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Also, there are 2 videos in Hindi:

Part 1:

Part 2:

In last few weeks, a video showing kids reciting english poems in some school of Punjab has been making waves on youtube.

It definitely looks funny during first watch. But soon it gives rise to serious questions about our education system. These kids don’t understand anything what they are speaking. They have just crammed this small poem and keep on reciting it daily without even trying to understand what does it mean, forget the American accent. And they are not at fault, rather we are responsible that they have got such an environment to grow up in.

What does that mean ? There are some serious flaws in our education system. It has been 51 years since we got freedom and see the standards of education in our country. It is not the story of Punjab only but almost every state in India. Start with primary schools and go up to professional colleges. Everywhere you will find the same story. The biggest difference which i have felt between India and abroad is that there the most qualified people are in the teaching profession and here the least qualified. If you are not getting any other job go for teaching. There are n number of reasons for that. One of the primary things being the bucks you earn. That again has to do with the system of our country that people who are responsible for laying the foundation of the country are not paid well and they opt for alternate professions and the mediocre class comes into teaching.

Some serious steps need to be taken. Otherwise govt institutions have already lost all the charm and there will be no fun in keeping them running. People would (in fact, already are) opt for private ones and that also would be out of reach of the middle class.

Without education can we progress ? NO, i think. In fact education is the only thing which can help us get rid of the evil things in our society.

What does Customer Care mean ? that too 24X7 : where customers can call anytime and get their issues resolved.

Well, i just called ICICI bank’s so called 24X7 customer care regarding a query about my online account. After pressing hell lot of buttons and spending good 5 minutes, i got an option to talk to their executive but to find “Due to exceptionally high number of calls, we wont be able to take your call right now, please try after some time”…

Bullshit !

They don’t even ask you to be in queue. Simply “Please try after some time”. “Please” is most mis-used word i think. See the status of ICICI bank and then response from customer care.

Even a common man can tell that if they experience high volume of calls in the evening, they should hire more people, expand their infrastructure. But NO. Who cares ! When people have no other option, let them go through all this.

There should be some govt body (as there is TRAI for telecom) monitoring all this and locking the banks which are not satisfying the SLAs set.

I know i shouldn’t have used this word BUT even this is lighter than what they deserve to be called !

One of my friend got transferred from Bangalore to Noida. As moving from one city to another (that too with family) is a big issue so he also started all the efforts of settling in the new city. Initially he didn’t bring his family with him and started searching for a rented accommodation. And this very first thing started the frustration. These days you cant find a house without involving a property dealer and it brings with it 2 wonderful things:

First that you have to pay one month rent to the broker.

and second that broker charge the same amount (or some %age of it) from the owner also. Due to this the rents you are told are generally above the normal. Lets say owner tells the broker that i want to rent out my apartment for 10k. Broker will tell him, you just wait i will help in renting out for 12k. Now why owner would say no to this ? This is the level of honesty with profession they are doing.

Another speciality with brokers is that what they tell, out of that more than 90% are lies (they justify it as need of the profession !) They will give you  the time to show you the house. You might reach there covering some good 40-50 kms to see that his office is closed and phone switched off ! It is so common. You might have tasted this if ever tried looking for a rented apartment.

Now come to house owners. They want money. That is all. You live or die. They don’t know. In India we cry about so called great culture, humanity, blah blah…where is that ?

The lady whose house he rented uttered a lot that you can shift on sunday. Everything will be done by Sunday. It has already been 3 days. Nothing is done and above all she shows rudeness in her behaviour that why she should do it ? Bullshit !

My friend is a very punctual and true to words guy. You ask him to come at 1:55 and he will be there by 1:50 and people here ? what to say…no value of time, words…they tell something and do something and reality is something else…

Don’t know where we are heading ?

Do you still think “Honesty is the best policy ?”

It has been 2 weeks since he came here and everywhere (looking for house or anything else) we have met with just frustration nothing else ?

What to do ? Where to go ?

Two of my friends started a new website PunjabiFirst. As of now only blog has been set up. I am also one of the contributors. Soon we hope to put other content also.

Do pay a visit !

http://blog.punjabifirst.com

Self explanatory, i think

Attaullah Khan has been one of my favourite singers since i started listening to music. Today i watched a ghazal sab maya hai on youtube. Its written by Insha and rendered beautifully bu Attaullah Khan. A must watch if you are a good music admirer:

Then i watched another video of the same ghazal which seems to be a newly recorded one. I was so sad to see that Attaullah Khan is getting older. The difference in his voice is clearly visible.

I wish he continues to sing for years…Insha’Allah !