The Reluctant Indian!!

I wanted to rant about "The Reluctant Indian" for long and after due reluctance, it is now that I set foot and byte to write about him (me too :) ). Everywhere you spot an Indian, there is this characteristic of reluctance that comes along with him. From what I hear about other country men, I believe this is unique to our country fellows, the phenomenon of being reluctant in whatever we set out foot to do. Of course, there are some exceptions, but exceptions are not examples!

Our Government is a very shining example of how reluctant an Indian could be. Key decisions take years to take, citing very unreasonable reasons. The reason being that our netas and babus don't want to take any step that would be risky and suicidal.. The very fact it has taken years for our public sector airlines to plan for upgradation of their fleet and also the number of years it takes to finalise plans for metro rail links in out cities reminds me of our reluctance. For such utility projects, there should be single window clearance for speedier clearance and speedier execution of projects. Or else, the private sector could gain more vis-a-vis the public sector.

Be it the top secretaries or IAS officers right down to clerks in government offices, they always want to pass the bucks. We have always had to meet umpteen number of officials to get our passport stamped or for obtaining driving license. Whether this is to purposefully complicate procedures or not, I give full credit again to reluctance of our Indian fraternity!!

A few more instances of reluctant Indians -

1) Government reluctant to press for hard reforms,

2) Indian ex-ministers reluctant to vacate!! - reports even a Taiwan newspaper Taipei Times

3) Reluctance to clean the mess in electricity boards

This phenomenon is not only observed in the government circle but also among the citizens too. Our fellow men hesitate for almost everything.. They hesitate to complain against irregularities ('the chaltha hai' attitude which is turning out to be more suicidal than anything) and lead a very mundane life. They are also reluctant to venture into newer fields of study or work. Only in the recent days, we observe emergence of a genre of people who venture into adventurous studies like 'voodoo art and its societal impact among indo-africans' and work like scuba diving,

adventure sports, salsa dancing etc.

We would continue to be more reluctant if we hear about what happened to a very few bold Indians like Satyendra Dubey and Manju Nathan who broke the tradition of being reluctant indians and tried an expose! Very sad, but that is the state of affairs in our country!

The growing online community and support in the form of chain e-mails and blog reports have had some ripple effects, but given the fact that the online user base is still low, there is very little awareness of these pressing issues among the common masses. I conclude with reluctance that we may be reluctant even in the coming years too!!!

My inner hero - Wizard!!!

Seems I am a wizard ( a la Albus Dumbledore!!!, I don't want to compare myself with the kiddies Ron or Harry :) ). Wish I had magical powers too :)


My Inner Hero - Wizard!





There are many types of magic, but all require a sharp mind and a cool head. There is no puzzle I can't solve, no problem I can't think my way out of. When you feel confused or uncertain, you can always rely on me to untangle the knots and put everything back in order for you.



How about you? Click here to find your own inner hero.

What's your Nerd Score?

Hey pals, I am not at all nerdish, but took this test out of sheer curiosity :)
Here's my Nerd Score!!!!

Soul Refilled!

If I could say so! I felt completely rejuvenated and rejigged after my travel to rural lands around Nagercoil and Kanyakumari. I travelled across the rural countryside, in a bumpy road, in age-old buses and when it was raining too, but still felt elated at heart! The very sight of miles of green field on both the sides of highways brings joy to this city born, brought-up and spoilt soul!! :) The very fact that I was away from the hustle and bustle of the city traffic and the pollution added to my ecstatic thoughts! Apart from the rural kaleidoscope, I ended up making a lot of observations about the countryside. A few, I jolt down here. That the government owns lots of properties in all the towns and villages (property of BSNL, Police, Municipality, Agri office, this, that etc), that there are beauty parlours mushrooming even in remote towns and villages shadowing the barber shops, that there are still many temples along the highways, that the roads (even after the so much hyped about Highways projects have been carried out) are still full of potholes and in a generic note, a lot needs to be improved on the basic hygiene and education sectors.

Education!!! This word keeps reeling in my head more often now after a visit to my relative's place. Are we educating our school and college goers properly? A BIG NO! My cousin showed me an essay from her English language text book and it was (obviously) on The Nehru family (The Ubiquitous Gandhi and Nehru!!). She had marked a few lines as important and when I glanced through them, I was more than shocked! Her teachers felt that those lines were very important as they kept appearing in objective type questions in the examinations. I quote those lines here "Nehru travelled by Dutch KLM Airlines while returning to India." Dutch KLM was highlighted as very important!!! She had no clue as to what was KLM (She needn't know at all) but is this the purpose of our Education for our kids to know by what airline Nehru travelled?? (My Big Foot!!!)

Travel musings!

Train journeys seem to be a little boring, especially if one has to travel in the evenings too! Sitting in a 'Super-fast express', you wonder whether it is inching ahead like a snail and at times, even a snail appears faster!! Co-passengers who are glued to their mobiles, murmuring either soft or cold words, rattling sound of the (ill-functioning) air-conditioner, constant jitters which keep reminding me again and again that I were travelling across the rural lands of our mighty country!!!

There are a few countries in the world where they take pride in running super express trains (The lightning fast Shinkansens of Japan or the TGVs of France) whereas in our country, Our railway babus don't want to operate trains even at moderately higher speeds! It's high time they learn some basic calculations that faster you travel (in safer tracks :) ), sooner you reach your destination (of course at a higher cost). Time saved == Money (in simple terms). Ignorant of this, our babus and netas don't want to make the initial investment, though it is huge to start with (Is money a constraint at all?)

The whole of Indian Railways (touted as World's largest employer, which I would re-word as World's largest employer of least efficient people) needs to be stripped and built from scratch, which I am sure, our netas and babus will never do. The need of the hour is to slowly introduce corporatisation as it has been done to BSNL and many other energy PSUs. At least, to start with, private operators could be allowed to run scheduled trains, in similar lines to private airlines. Little do we have to reiterate, how the public sector carriers AI and IA have improved their efficiencies after competition was introduced in Airlines. Competition is the key word! Competition ensures better service to the customer and improved efficiency. I am sure, private Indian companies like Reliance, Tatas would be ready to foray (given the frequent Indian rail traveller, and the need of the hour for better service from the railways, private train service providers stand to gain even during the initial stages) in this lucrative market, but over-regulation by government regarding pricing, licensing etc might kill the golden goose again! At least in the next 10 years, I wish something on these lines to happen, so that Railways properly utilise the additional capacity.

Pathetic state of Airports in India!

Rediff has published an excellent article by Govindraj Ethiraj "On a wing... without a hope!" highlighting the very sorry state of our airports! Everyone (irrespective of whether he would use the airport in the future or not) should read that article! Though I have used Chennai Airport only once, I had very bitter experiences at almost all stages of boarding and deplaning the flight. Immigration official forgot to stamp my passport, the custom officer forgot to handle me some papers (No traveller should be expected to remember these procedures. The officials are after all paid for carrying forward these duties properly) and in the security check, the official failed to manage the crowd properly. Little wonder that frequent travellers have a lot of such bitter experiences, when I, who has used the "facility" called airport just once has so much to lament!

But I simply don't understand, why our netas and babus often go on foreign tours to visit airports, study infrastructure etc, but never come back and implement them. Money is definitely not an issue. It can be mopped up through proper budgeting. They just don't want to improve the facilities. They just want to live a life of heck and don't want to provide better facilities to common men. Just imagine, when public facilities like Roads, Railways, Roadway transports, Airports etc are in such a pathetic condition, how do we intend to be among developed nations in the future, if not the near future?

I guess, as I have said earlier many times, as long as Left is at the Centre, The Government may hesitate to take any positive steps ahead to reform the existing situations. One shining example is that of Foreign Direct Investment in Retail. FDI in retail must have come long back (when countries like China, Malaysia etc opened up their retail trade) and it is already too late here. But still, left doesn't want to allow FDI in retail. I completely don't understand, why they don't have the maturity that even I exhibit? I am sick and tired of shopping in kirana and annachi shops where they dictate the rules more than me (a customer asking for a bargain). I want big shops to be setup, which can in general improve the infrastructure in retail, like international class supply chain management, cold storage, export of surplus Indian goods to countries where demand is high and bring in moolahs to our exchequer. China has greatly benefitted out of this, and figures like $15 billions are quoted to be China's exports in retail just by the top retailers out of China (Walmart, Tesco etc). So Who are these communists who are stopping me from having an international shopping experiences at bargain prices? Don't I have the right to choose whom should I shop at? Why should they dictate? First, UPA should cleanse itself and unfetter itself from the left, call for fresh elections, project themselves better and then emerge single and victorious. Left should be left in the roads. Then, I wish Manmohan and Chidambaram can go ahead and proceed with more reforms. LEFT SUCKS BIG TIME!!