Happy New Year!

Its that time of the year when all the channels on TV are busy getting all their old clippings in line and setting up a list to show over and over again calling it the best and the worst of 2008. Actually, I guess this is the time when the news channels have to do least research and lie back and enjoy the new year as there is hardly much to think and show for at least a couple of days till something new and big comes along.

On a more serious note, I think a few names which were never heard of till last year, but now would ring a bell anytime they are mentioned would be :

Abhinav Bindra who got India the sole Olympic medal, for which India should thank the richness of Abhinav's father to have been able to afford the world class training which could channelise the talent of this shooter

Vijender Singh :who has been showing his teeth and face more than his boxing arms since Beijing Olympics.

Saina Nehwal for making it into the top 10 of World Badminton Female Rankings

The now very famous phrase in the north " SINGH IS KING"

A new Khan  and a new Kapoor in Indian movies : Imran Khan & Ranbir Kapoor

Aamir Khan gave barbers a reason to cheer : the new ghajini cut set their cash registers ringing though it is still to become clear whether the movie does the same for the producer.

An infamous Ajmal Kasab : whom the Pakistanis won't own and the Indians can't pardon

I guess its been a mixture of good and bad just like all the other years in the past but as usual we will talk and make a big hu-ha about it. The new year is not going to change the universe, but just brings in the hope that it would make the world a slightly more tolerable place to live in.

Happy New Year To All!

The Positives of 26/11

The whole world has been talking about the attack on Mumbai and the negative sentiments it conveyed.With due respect to all those who succumbed to the terrorist bullets on that day, I still see quite a few positive points coming out of that fateful day.
1. The Page 3 of India moved to page 1 for a sad reason and got a first hand feel of terror and its repurcussions on one's life, which probably has helped to make this incident appear as INDIA"S NINE ELEVEN as the journalists put it.
2.It was the final nail in the coffin to prove internationally that Pakistan is surely nurturing the terror organisations against India.
3. At last the politicians came up with what India needed for a long long time - a federal agency against terror and more teeth for the laws against terror.
4. Three most useless people in the Indian political scenario were finally shown the door - Shivraj Patil, Vilasrao Deshmukh and R.R.Patil
5. The "lal batti car" status provided to the overprotected netas was reevaluated and the police were relieved of the shame of protecting 50 useless politicians and were back to doing what they were trained to do- fight for the citizens of India.
6.Actors like Rahul Bose who have little to do as far as their career as an actor is concerned got a chance to talk about something in the media besides their embarrassing box office records.
Well, I guess there would be more to add to that list but at least not everything is grey and sad about the happenings of that horrifying day.Every cloud does have a silver lining after all!

NON VIOLENCE IS NOT NO VIOLENCE!

क्षमा शोभती उस भुजंग को जिसके पास गरल हो
उसको क्या जो दंतहीन, विषरहित , विनीत, सरल हो!
सहनशीलता, क्षमा, दया को तभी पूजता जग है,
बल के दर्प चमकता उसके पीछे जब जगमग है!

These are a couple of lines from a poem by a well known hindi poet, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar. I am no poet for one,neither anyone with a great literary sense nor do I have much space at the top to understand as to what most people narrate in the form of prose. But when my colleague, Dr.Rajeshwary, narrated these lines during one of our "discussions", it just made so much sense in my life as well as that of India.
Lets start about India.I think in the name of resilience, we have been just trying to avoid facing these terrorist outfits which has made us look weak and meek in the international arena. All it takes to avoid any noise from our quarter is to send an emissary from the powerhouse of the world (and that's USA as we all know) and we sit tight in the corner thinking we have done enough and then its time for us to keep silent and lie still waiting to be shaken up from the slumber by another attack on not just the citizens but our pride as a nation.And that's how we have come to be taken as a QUIET nation still dwelling on the pride of being non-violent. I think its time to redefine this term NON-VIOLENCE. We have to vehemently make the world aware that NON VIOLENCE does not mean NO VIOLENCE . We need to instill the fear of our toughness too and not just get into a jumble of words when attacked.
I guess its the same in our lives to as individuals.Sometimes we just find people taking advantage of us and our manners making it our weakness rather than a virtue. We all need to realise that its not an ideal world and so there are times we need to assert our rights and say it loud when its wrong because its not just doing the wrong which is not right but not doing the right is also wrong.
When the two great mythologies,the Mahabharata and Ramayana, preach about good prevailing over evil even if it requires a war to get that result, isn't it time for us to once again to prove that its time for the good to prevail over the evil by taking the right measures??

Where is world heading to?????

Today is different and so will be everyday from now on. I just woke up in the morning and went through the regular routine of picking up the paper from the balcony expecting to see the now routine headlines of sensex crashing and people being served pink slips in a few more sectors. But the sleep just vanished when I saw the headlines stating "WAR ON MUMBAI". I had slept a bit early and missed the main news of terrorist strike on the financial hub of India.
Just a bunch of 25 teenagers have created havoc and mayhem in the lives of all Indians. I don't know what is acheived by all this. Just more hatred, blodbath, sorrow and tears. Who gains???? The lives of these youth will be lost sooner or later, there are hundreds of families left in despair and the word "peace" has vanished from the lives of everyone in this country and fear looms large everywhere. Is this what we are born for? Isn't it more worthwhile to be born as an innocent animal who carries no hatred or weapons and the only thought on its mind is to get its share of food so that it can sleep in peace.
I guess the world was better in the stone ages....... at least, there was less hatred and fear then!
All that I can do for the innocents who perished in the last 2 days is pray that their souls rest in peace and their families get the courage to live through this unfortunate tragedy.

Large Hearted Americans!

I was just reading the other day in the papers about the First Black President-elect.... in fact there was hardly anything else positive in the papers which I can say was worth reading. To be very truthful, we need to hand it over to the Americans for their support to this lean man in whom they have put their trust. People might say a thousand things about the racial difference and ill treatment in the west but this election definitely makes one thing clear which we badly lack - Americans give the person a chance if he/she has the potential. Not that it is a bed of roses for anyone, anywhere and neither should it be that way. But then the thumping majority definitely proves that Americans are more secular than us.
Except Sonia Gandhi, I really can't think of any other foreigner who has been elected to the Parliament of independent India and the world knows the opposition that she faces being the odd one out (Well,well, I am not a Congress supporter in anyway! In fact I strongly believe that all parties take the country to the dogs, its just the speed at which they do is different :)). But there is a long of politicians from other races who have been having their say in the American senate.I guess its one of the reasons which puts us in the developing nation category and not in the developed one as yet. We just don't let the person with the ability to make a difference to raise his head.
Why talk of others, lets just analyse ourselves. How many of us look at the new colleagues entering our workplace as someone capable of doing some good to the organisation. He/she is always a threat and we dig to find the mistakes rather than let the person settle and get comfortable with us . Have I said anything wrong?
I guess there lies our fault. We, Indians, have a pseudo-superiority and when we can't really achieve what someone else has, we either become their psycophants or oppose them with "religion and culture" as our shields.And if the person who has done something exclusive has even a remote connection with India, we don't stop at anything to establish the connection irrespective of whether that person has any knowledge of where India is, forget the patriotism part.I don't say US is perfect..... but actually I am, for once, just trying not to find their fault but trying to learn why they excel in a lot of things. What do you say?

Aadhar (support).......for the needy!

Hi all! This time I am not writing my thoughts but just wanting to spread a nice cause that my "FPG" (friend, philosopher and guide) has been doing for the last 10 years. She is Dr.Rajeshwary Kulkarni - an eye surgeon and a victim of a cruel disease called cancer which in medical terms was Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Its normal for a human to fall prey to the problem and get dejected but what is commendable is that Dr.Rajeshwary not only had the will to come out of it unscathed but also drew inspiration from the experience to start a charitable trust called - AADHAR (meaning support in hindi). The trust, for the last 10 years, has been helping small children suffering from cancer with funds to bear the exhorbitant cost of the cancer treatment and with the help of its volunteers lending a helping hand in the form of counseling to cancer patients of all ages. Its a totally non profit organisation and the donations to this fund are tax free in India.
Well, readers, the least that we can do is visit her blog (www.aadharforcancer.blogspot.com) and help pass on the message that this wonderful lady started 10 years ago and continues doing the same untiringly.God bless Aadhar!

Delhi........ no more the same!

The weather in Delhi is getting chillier by the day and the warmth of the sun is more craved for and appreciated now. I hope the cooler temperature also cools down the temperature of the people residing in the capital who are always on the edge. I have seen Delhi change in front of my eyes and this has not been only with respect to the development of the city with the metro and flyovers pouring in but also the behaviour of the people.
In my last stay here which was almost 6 years ago, this city was really a different place. Not just was it less crowded, it was also more tolerant. People were more friendly and life here seemed more livable.I guess time and times have both taken their toll on this city. In fact, its just the reflection of the state that we are in........ financially, socially and mentally!
I just hope that the people and the times iron out the pain and stress........a wish I guess is too much to fathom for the capital!

Harry Potter's INDIAN connection..????

Its been raining cats and dogs in Delhi for the last two days and well the drop in the temperature has not just brought some relief to the weather but has also brought some smile on my face. I really don't know what is it that I am upbeat about but I guess its just one of those days when you feel positive and glad to be where you are and what you are doing.
I am not a really a bookworm but somehow I managed to gather courage to read the first book of the Harry Potter series (the truth is that I really never understood the movie and was feeling sort of ashamed that I wasn't able to follow something which kids one fourth my age really are going ga-ga about! And so it was high time I matched up to them!! ). I have just gone through the first few chapters of it and I must say that the author has some really wild and interesting imagination.... but I don't know how many have found some similarity between the events in the life of Harry Potter and our own Lord Krishna.
The fact that,this boy was hated by a powerful and evil guy and inspite of his attempts to kill baby Harry, the baby survives and is left at the doorstep where he can be taken care of, is very close to what the mythologies describe about the life of Krishna. I don't know if that was in anyway an inspiration for J.K.Rowling but definitely the popularity of the book and the movie shows that possibly Krishna lives in the imagination of not just Indians but also the other races and it is a character which all love to believe and identify with!

Hi I am back!

Hello! I am back after a long break and its been a tremendous change not just in terms of the place but also the lifestyle, work and rather every aspect of my life. I guess thats the way life is in a big city.... specially when you are in the capital of the country. Gone are the days when I used to wake up and lazily carry the paper in my lap and go through the headlines bothering least about what my next activity should be. Now the alarm is almost like a war cry for me to get ready for the fight called LIFE . And after seeing the regularity with which the terror has creeped into our lives, I guess no one is really very confident of what he or she is going to encounter on leaving the doorstep. And after the blasts that rocked this city once again, despite all the odds that we may come across in our lives at various points in time, we all need to just thank that WE ARE ALIVE and well at the end of the day ..............and maybe thats the only sign that we have probably done some good act during that day for which we have been saved and survived another day in this BIG BAD WORLD!

Mysore: glad it happened!

Its been 10 months since I have been waiting for this moment............. leaving Mysore and going back to Delhi. To be honest, I disliked this place from the very moment I stepped here. I was coming from Chandigarh,one of the best cities in this country, and it was my first stint of stay ever in south India. Only after arrival here, did I realise that there is a strong and invisible divide between the north and south.In fact, here in the south, people almost tend to treat you like foreigners once they come to know that you don't share either their looks or have any little knowledge of the language they speak.For the first time I realised that its really amazing that we call ourself one country and are bound by one law because the under that one roof,the rooms are so strongly built that there is really not much that one can hear of what goes on in the other.
However, the last few months have softened my outlook about Mysore.... thanks to some of the nice people that I have come of befriend.In fact,I surely would remember this place for its weather and beauty and at the end of the day, I am really happy that Mysore happened to me.
However, the bottomline is that I am going back to where I belong and that thought leaves a big smile on my face.So, I shall be back in the same avatar talking sweet salt and bitter once I settle down.Till then, ciao!

Humans.....God's mistake for sure!

Yesterday, my wife and daughter visited the Mysore zoo and more than anything else I was extremely excited about my 2 year old seeing a variety of fauna for the first time in her life. It all went well till the time I was driving back to collect them from the zoo. Suddenly a thought occurred to me that what if we humans were not so lucky and the animals were lucky enough to get us caged and keep in the zoo! It just sounded so cruel..........I realised that how selfish we humans are! Just for the pleasure of our eyes, we shamelessly execute our superiority on the other species!
I think this concept of zoo is wrong and cruel to say the least. We need to respect the other not-so-lucky creations of God and give them their due. After all their only fault is that they were not the chosen ones to be born as a human being .... probably a creation which even God must be regretting after having created it!
I think my 2 year toddler seems to more intelligent than I thought her to be because the whole tour did nothing to amuse her ...... and it took me 33 years of my life to realise that it was really nothing to be amused about.... rather it is a mistake which we should correct...and the earlier the better!

Tourism in ruins!

I am just about to wrap up my stint of stay in Karnataka, the place that boasts of having the "silicon valley" of India, Bangalore. Just before I leave this place for good, I , like all Indians, am in the process of marking my attendance in the places of interest around Mysore. So yesterday, we planned to go to the nearby tourist spot of Thalakad, around 75 kms away from Mysore.However the trip turned out to test my driving skills to the hilt and I guess we will land up remembering the trip for the horrifying journey than the beauty of the place.
Its so saddening to see the state of tourism in Karnataka. Our last journey to Ooty gave me a hands on experience of how it must be to drive through roads after an earthquake rips it off. To come to think of it, I guess, the orthopedicians in this state should pay some commission to the government for getting them patients with low backaches,as the bad travel must be contributing to a significant number of victims turning to the doctors for relief.
On a more serious note, I don't know why a bad and sorry experience is required to awaken the government. I bet only after a major accident claims the life of poor tourists that the headlines would be grabbed and the government would land up doing "too little too late" to improve the pathetic state of the roads in Karnataka.
Our politicians are so busy grabbing the gaddi from each other that miss out opputunities to increase the revenue for the government.God has been so kind and bestowed so much to us in the form of heritage and scenic beauty that its a crime and unpardonable offence not to recognise it and use it to promote tourism. A small country like Maldives which thrives and survives on tourism would have been enough to make a responsible government make best of the beauty in the country.
I don't understand why do these netas make big issues about the Indian culture when they really have done nothing to preserve the past. I guess, politics is all about just talks relating to POLL- TIC king in the mind of the dirty politicians of this country and they fail to see beyond it...........!

After the break...

I have been away a long time and to tell the truth it was partly laziness,partly some pending tasks and mostly lack of anything concrete to pen down.And today, I happened to read a beautiful blog of a cousin of mine and that sure charged me up to get back to playing with my thoughts.
The season has changed and in Mysore, where I currently live, I don't know what is making making the clouds push the sun away to grab undue attention. I guess nature is taking lessons from politicians now.But one season which never effects our clothing but brings almost everyone take notice of it in India is - cricket. And it surely is living up to its reputation. Sehwag scored... the media bored with their regular set of praises which is going to last till he is back to collecting ducks instead of runs on the field.
I don't know what it is with us Indians.......we have an explanation for everything that happens to be in the news....take cricket for example. I bet there must have been a million voices in thousands of channels, right from experts in the game to the so called astrologers..... and even the layman in the gali-nukkad talks ....having an opinion about why Sehwag didn't play well all these days and why he would from now on. No one wants to enjoy a moment and leave it at that ...... all are interested in putting their signatures at its bottom and claim it as their own.I guess thats what makes us INDIANS... we always are interested the letter "I " all the time. So what if Sehwag had a twist of fate and puts lots of hard work before he sweated out those runs.....after all "I told you so"...;)

CRIK ..CRIK...CRICKET!

Cricket is almost a religion in India and like so many things in the religion which you would like to change but you cant, I guess its the same with the Indian cricket. I really fail to understand all the hoo- haa that this game has generated for the last 2 days. I agree that it was an achievement to win against Australia in their home ground but does it solicit so much of attention that people throng the airports and gherao the roads to garland the team. It almost seemed like the cricket team had won a world war and come!!
There is a limit to which one can go to felicitate these crciket icons. In a country where we have a raging debate going on about the waiver of 60 thousand crores to farmers by the goverment, the cricket board shamelessly gave away 10 crores to the players,who are already minting millions through endorsements. Why doesn't this cricket board ever think of sharing their philanthropic ideas on something more important to the country, especially when we have a well known politican running the BCCI show.
Have you ever heard of such glorification and celebration being carried out in China, Russia or the other more athletic countries in this world, which take away pots of gold every time the Olympics are held. May be there lies the reason for our failing to make a mark in a lot of things....... we just carry things too far..... be it celebration or criticism....we just fail to maintain a balance!

Why this title?

Hi Everyone! ... Let me start by telling why I call this blog sweet, salt and bitter. Well the truth is i really didn' want to wrack my brains thinking of an attractive title for a blog and the first thing that came across my mind was to call it what i wished to write in the blog. This is going to sound cliche and boring but all i want to write is about my life and well I guess, its a mixture of something sweet, salt and many a times bitter and so ,what the heck, i called it that (and to my luck the title was available)!