The Selfish Life

Recently I was reading about Arvind Kejriwal, one of the leading social activists leading the fight against corruption. Arvind Kejriwal was one of the leading guys behind the Right to Information (RTI) Act too.

Arvind is an IIT Kharagpur B.Tech and then he joined civil services in 1992 as Indian Revenue Services (IRS) officer. While working with the Income Tax department, he saw the widespread corruption prevalent there. He started Parivartan, an NGO for bringing in transparency in Government.

I am also an engineer and went to one of the IITs (for my masters). But our similarities end there. After reading about Arvin Kejriwal, I have realized what a selfish life that I am living! Our lives are too materialistic nowadays. We are busy buying a house, a car and then paying mortgages (EMI) for these in remaining of our lives. We are busy thinking how to get the next salary hike and how good will be this year's bonus. We are busy replacing the our old (CRT) TVs with a LCD/LED ones. We are just busy with ourselves and no time to think about the society. We feel we live a comfortable and happy (?) life. One day we will die and no one will remember us.

Arvind Kejriwal could have led a life like ours. He was an IRS officer and could have accumulated tons of wealth like other IRS folks. But he opted for a different path. He left his own comforts so that he can make  the lives of millions of his fellow country men less miserable.

Do you also lead a selfish life? Are you happy with it?

The Great Awakening

I was born during the Emergency Period of 25th June 1975 to 21st March 1977. I never saw what emergency was; only heard about it later from others. On the morning of August 16th, we experienced some emergency like situation in India when Delhi police arrested Anna Hazare from his apartment. He wanted to go on a fast against the widespread corruption prevalent in our country. The government didn't want him to go on the fast. So they came up with numerous restrictions against his agitation.


How widespread is the corruption? Let me summarize it in one sentence. In every step from our birth to death, we face corruption. We need to bribe government officials to get the birth certificate. I heard the same is true when we try to get the death certificate!

I am an engineer working with a multi-national IT company and belong to the so-called middle class. Usually, the middle class in India have a general apathy to the direct involvement in affairs of the state.

Corruption affects everyone - middle-class or economically lower class. The poor class suffers more as corruption affects them directly in their day-to-day life.Government of India has lots of development schemes for the economically downtrodden class. But thanks to the leakage in these schemes, the real benefits never reach them! Public Distribution System (PDS) supplies subsidized food items to the poor; but it is diverted and sold in black market. NREGA gives some employment guarantee scheme to the poor; but fake identities are created who suck the benefits. (The examples of pilferage are just too many and I don't want to list them all here). On the other hand, middle class have some economic cushion that probably don't affect them so harshly like the poor people.

Let me give you my recent experience with corruption. I paid Rs 30,000/- to register my property at sub-registrar office in Bangalore. Then I again paid Rs 7,000/- to get the Khata (property ownership document) in BBMP office. I heard that there is a big nexus of builder, sub-registrar and politicians in these. (I'll write a separate blogs on these later). I knew paying bribe is bad. But then why did I choose to pay bribe? Because I knew that if I don't pay bribe, I have to make several rounds to the offices, argue with officials, my inability to speak the local language Kannada etc. I thought that time is also money. If I spend too much time visiting these offices, it will put stress on my work-life. I believe I represent the mentality of many of middle-class. We all felt bad and agitated about it; but we felt helpless.

In 2011, we have seen some big corruption cases - like CWG, 2G etc. Then came Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal and their India Against Corruption campaign. Anna Hazare has awakened the sleeping middle class. Middle class is on the street these days. I have already seen that the agitation is gradually percolating down to the poorer classes. (Yesterday the Delhi auto-rickshraws joined the protest.)

I'm joining the protest for a better India, a corruption free India. Are you?

No registered trademark? Then be ready to say "We don't have any branches"

Last weekend we visited Hyderabad to meet my cousin and his wife and also to attend ACM India 2011 meet.  One of the major attractions of Hyderabad is its biriyani. We wanted to taste the authentic biriyani of Hyderabad. We heard that Bawarchi at RTC Cross Road (X road) serves very good biriyani. From my cousin's place to Bawarchi, the distance is about 30km. On way to Bawarchi, we saw many other restaurants named Bawarchi. Our cab driver Abdulla told us that these were all new Bawarchi and the original one is at Cross Road. I remember seeing one Bawarchi restaurant opened in Banaswadi main road in Bangalore also two years back. I assumed that this must be one chain of restaurants like Mainland China, Oh Calcutta etc.

After reaching Bawarchi at RTC Cross Road, the first thing that attracted my attention was the big  hoarding they put up announcing that they don't have any branches!  They had similar banner inside the restaurant too.

I've seen the we-don't-have-any-branches message in all Agarwal Sweets, Evergreen Sweets etc Delhi/Noida in and I posted it in my blog a few years back. But those are small shops compared to Bawarchi. This is the problem if we don't register our trademarks. I remember Infosys giving advertisements in  leading newspapers/magazines a few years back that the word Infosys was their trademark and it was illegal to use that word. Probably some companies started using the name Infosys and that's why Infosys was concerned. Without a trademark, imagine every other company with the name Infosys putting up a banner that they don't have any branches! It would have been a disaster with the original Infosys.

Purpose of learning history

Why do we read history in school? What is the advantage of learning our past? What benefit do we get by learning what our forefathers did many hundred centuries back?

I feel the purpose of learning history is about knowing our base, knowing our roots. Another purpose of learning history is to learn from experience and not to commit the same mistakes someone did some years back.

But interestingly, history involves some politics too. History is written in such a way so as not to cause displeasure to the rulers. Sometime same history is written and told in different way to two different audiences.  (I know the same history is presented in different way in India and Pakistan!)

History usually tells us about lots of bad things also that happened in past - wars, massacres, loot, exploitation, rape etc. Many hundred years back, people were not so civilized. There were blood-thirsty kings who always wanted to expand their kingdoms. Some people were aggressors and some people were victims. In twenty first century when we read bloody history that my ancestors were attacked by their ancestors, should we seek revenge for those misdeeds committed many hundred years back and attack their descendant now? If we follow the principle of revenge, then India should now attack England because the English men came here in 1601 to do business but then colonized and looted my country for three hundred years. Or, whole of Asia should attack Mongolia because Genghis Khan created lot of terrors here. No normal person would ever think to do these. We can't undo what has happened in history. We shouldn't try to take revenge for something that happened in past. What has happened in history has happened. We should learn from it rather than seeking to undo events in history.

But the most important question is: should we seek judicial intervention now for some of the misdeeds of history? Will the judiciary be able to resolve it? I wonder!

Cable Black Out! Thanks

Yesterday I spent a relaxed evening at home after so many months (or years).  Some good music was being played in our our music system. The idiot box was completely shut off. I was pleasantly surprised thinking that it was something by choice. There were no cartoon shows, no boring soap operas.

It later turned out that the pleasant evening was not by choice; but by compulsion. There was some problem in the cable connection of our apartment complex. There was no signal coming in our cable connection since morning till late into the night.

These days I feel irritated at the  sound of the idiot box.  The same boring programs - cartoon shows or soap operas - the same story keep repeating. So, thanks to the cable guys, I had a pleasant evening.

Almost missed the flight

Last Saturday I was traveling from Guwahati to Bangalore with SpiceJet flight number SG-529. The flight departs Guwahati at 2:35 PM. My hometown Morigaon is about 100km from the airport. One of our friends, who lives in Guwahati, invited us for lunch at their place on way to the airport. We planned to leave Morigaon at 8AM; but we were delayed and finally left home at 9AM. We reached my friends' apartment in Guwahati at around 11:15AM. They prepared a delicious lunch. We left his residence at 12:30PM. By the time we reached Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi Airport, it was 1:30PM.  I knew we were a bit late. But I didn't know that we were so late that I was about to miss the flight!

We got the boarding pass quickly, in about 10 minutes time. We were in the queue for security check by 1:45PM. There was separate queue for ladies and G went through the queue quickly. But the security check queue for men was too long. There were only two gates for security check for men. I found that six flights depart between 2:30PM and 3:30PM. I was in the queue till 2:10 PM and  sure to miss the flight. I heard my son crying from the other side by calling me. I tried to call my wife; but there was no network coverage. I wanted to tell her that all of us shouldn't miss the flight. At least they should fly to Bangalore. Finally I got her on the cell; but she refused to fly without me.

At around 2:20PM, I cleared the security check. There were seven more persons besides us. Finally we boarded the flight.

There is a new circular issued by some of the airlines in India that check-in counters will close 45 minutes before departure in six metros and boarding gates will close 25 minutes before departure. In other cities, check-in counters will close 30 minutes before departure and boarding will close 15 minutes departure. This assumes that we can clear the security check in 10 or 15 minutes time. That's impossible. Security check is the real bottleneck and as in my case last Saturday, it may take more than 30 minutes.

What I've learned from my experience? It's important that we reach the airport two hours before departure even when we're traveling on a domestic flight. Else, we may end up missing the flight.

PMGSY: catalyst for changing the rural landcape

I'm just back from Assam after a one week long vacation there. Usually we go to Assam once every year and we take two weeks off. But this time we were there for a shorter time. When we go there, we visit our relatives from both my side and my wife's side. Most of our relatives are in Nagaon district. Nagaon is a central district in the southern bank of the Brahmaputra.

I drove a lot during the vacation. I observed three things about the roads in Nagaon district. I hope it's the same in almost every part of Assam. The national highway (NH-37) is in a bad shape because of the four-lane NHAI project. This project has been going on for quite a long time. I'm not sure how many years it'll take for the completion of the four-lane highway. Secondly, state roads (maintained by state PWD department) are in pathetic conditions. The road connecting my native town Morigaon to the nearby town Nagaon is one of the worst road I've ever seen. The condition of that road has been deteriorating every year. Either the local politicians are not interested or the state government has no money for development of the roads.

Contrary to the gloomy condition of the national highways and state roads, the village roads present a completely different picture. Thanks to the central government scheme called Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (means Prime Minister's Village Road Plan),  all the village roads have been developed in recent years in Nagaon and Morigaon districts and hopefully in rest of Assam also.  The remotest villages have all been connected through good roads under this scheme. There is not much traffic on these roads. These roads have started a new market for vehicles like Tata Winger, Tata Magic etc. These vehicles carry around 10 or 15 people and ply on these roads. Now it's a lot easier for people to travel through these villages.

I used these roads built under PMGSY scheme to drive to many of the villages where our relatives live. Taking these roads reduces the distance otherwise I had to take using highways.

I was curious to know who will maintain these roads. Construction of these roads will be meaningless if these are not maintained properly. I heard that there is a 5 year maintenance period for these roads. The contractor whoever builds these village roads need to keep aside 25% of the fund for maintenance of the road for the next 5 years. I hope this money is used in actually maintaining the roads and don't end up in the pockets of the officials.

Roads are very important for economic development. Most of India still lives in villages. Till a few years back, road connectivity in these villages were a big problem. I hope the PMGSY roads will bring in new prosperity and socio-economic development to our villages.