AIDS (Austerity for India's Development Syndrome)....

There have been recent reports that the central govt is soon going to turn luxury to a swear word...our MoS for external affairs Mr. Shashi Tharoor will second this.....having already been rapped for his tweets he is now being crucified for his love of luxury...travelling executive class, enjoying his stay at 5 star hotels..etc etc etc...

Even the high flying CEOs and MDs of private enterprises have also not been spared...and the originator of the curse is none other than M S Ahluwalia, the deputy chairman of the planning commission. Mr. M S Ahluwalia.

Now, what would our favourite Ayn didi have to say about it??? In her books, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, Ayn didi talks about value creation, the need to enjoy the fruit of the labour...after all it is these CEOs who are filling up the govt’s coffers with crores by means of excise duty and TDS??? Don’t they have a right to enjoy?? Why does a CEO have to travel economy when he can afford executive?? Does he have to stay in a dingy dorm, the kind which we see near most railway stations , when he goes for a business trip abroad?? Does he have to wear an S Kumars trousers or worse still Khadi clothes when his counterparts settle for nothing less than Gucci???

All this crap about austerity, asking the CEOs to cut down on their pays when they are creating value to the country and employing thousands of people is ultimately passing the buck....and unfortunately the buck has originated from the place where it actually has to stop (quoting a US president’s graffiti on the wall). Why don’t our ministers cut down on their Z class security cover??Why don’t they live in a 2BHK apt instead of living in a posh govt bungalow in lutyen’s delhi??

I believe that people who create money (again quoting Ayn didi) have the right to enjoy it. In fact they are the only people who ought to enjoy it...not our ministers and bureaucrats who live off taxpayers hard earned cash.

So my dear Ministerjees and bade babus....there are thousands of other problems facing india today than the fat pay packets of CEOs which require much more creativity and competence of yours..so please ‘would the real policymaker please stand up’???

Opposites Attract

I had been thinking of writing this piece for so long...i guess from the time i heard first about love. But here I am sitting in front of my PC as blank as I was 10 years ago.....

For some strange reason....I don’t know where to begin or even how to begin. My guess is that most people who do fall in love (at least they think they do) cannot write much about it...not because they cant write down their thoughts but because they don’t know how to think.
Two movies I saw recently got me started to think about this subject....one was ‘Love Aaj Kal’ and the other is ‘The Reader’. Some of the events in my life have also acted as a trigger for me to write about this topic.

I know of a guy and his girlfriend who say ‘I love you’ to each other many times a day. But do they really mean it when they say it? Atleast the guy doesn’t. I haven’t met the girl so I cannot comment much about her. The guy is an independant, practical and ‘I wanna be free’ kind of guy. The girl I hear is from a conservative family, never goes out of the house after dark unless accompanied by her family, is probably allergic to half the things in the world and likes to be taken care of just like a baby. I sit down and think sometimes...how did these people actually fall for each other in the first place...then i’m reminded of that old cliché ‘ Opposites Attract’. But do they? Actually?

Some of the more successful relationships I know of...have the guy and the girl on an equal footing. They have lots in common. Both of them might be working in the IT sector, both might be from the same college, both may have the same outlook towards life....but on some level there is a common ground on which the relationship is built. But if there is nothing common to write home about? Does that relationship succeed? Lets call the guy and the gal in the previous para Mr. X and Ms. Y respectively. X and Y infact do have some common ground. But Mr. X is unwilling to acknowledge the same. He doesn’t care much about the ground and so he doesn’t care much about the relationship. But both end up saying ‘I love you’ to each other.

What is the basis of such a relationship I ask him and he dismisses it with his usual flourish..and then I am back to square one....back to where I started..back to the definition of love.
In the books ‘The Fountainhead’ and ‘Atlas Shrugged’ Ayn Rand talks about love in a most unusual way. She thinks love is not compromise. No relationship should cause one to compromise his basic nature. His ultimate goals. His life. But we have seen countless relationships off and on screen which have had to compromise in order to continue. Obviously, Ms. Rand’s Ideas fail in the practical world? But I would again like to raise the question....how far will you go to save a relationship?

More on this later...
Ekhun aami berocchi...
Abar ekhane aashbo....

Aankhon me jiske......

Aankhon me jiske..koi to khwaab hai..
Khush hai wahi jo...thoda betaab hai....

These lines from the poet javed akhtar should convince any living soul on earth to dream....and dream big....but for some reason I have become passive to these lines as well. Now a days I live like there is no today, there was no yesterday and there is no tomorrow. My life 6 days a week has become a silent movie which keeps repeating itself after every 24 hours. And my weekends are another silent movie which repeat themselves every Thursday.
Every morning I wake up at 7.20-7.30, finish my daily chores and leave for office by 8.00. I reach my office at 08.30 and then begins another of those days I rue. I have a morning meeting with my boss at around 09.00. Everyday he sets targets for me which are to be met, which I don’t meet inevitably.
Then I go to my line which I push till 03.00 and then I linger for two hours and I leave the office. I come back home either go for tea at the nearby shop and then come back and either roam to other peoples rooms or come back to my room and play NFS. My dinner comes in a plastic bag at 08.20 which I have by max 09.00 and then I go out to buy some smokes and pudiya for the next day....

That’s it....next morning its all the same....waking up, going to office...blah blah blah!!!
The only happening thing in my life is that now I have begun to drink more than usual...some how I feel that this can elevate my mood...but instead drinking gives me sleepless nights...It seems long that I have slept undisturbed for 8 hours......
This insomnia is something inexplicable...either it is a side effect of alcohol or a side effect of my job pressures I do not know......but its there...its real and its killing me slowly.....
I also seem to have lost all concern...for my family, for my friends, for my girlfriend....no one seems to matter any more........
But everyday I wake up thinking..this day is going to be something different from the previous ones....something exciting is going to happen..which is what keeps me going from day to day...weekend to weekend.....but that exciting thing never turns up.....
I have always had this bad habit of day dreaming of how my life should ideally be.....I should get time to learn and play the guitar....I want to go to the gym, may be atleast jog for few days a week, I would get rid of my tummy and be fit and fine.....I would look something like salman when I’m 40. What does a man do to get what he wants....that is a question I always ask myself.....earlier it was a presence of a female who would love and care for you....this I have now...but still it doesn’t seem to have helped anything....
I’m still waiting for that one fine day...where I would wake up and do what I want to do with my life.....I’m still waiting .......