India Beyond Cricket

India is world champions in the 20-20 format of cricket....... WOW, everyone will always remember who won the first world cup of 20-20 form of cricket. Great. All congratulations to the winning team.

Secularism has been one thing impacting my views since childhood. I feel strongly that all religions should be treated equally. To generalize all equal things should be treated equally, so is it with sports. But do we treat sports equally? Definitely not. Being the Hypocrite that I am like many of my fellow countrymen, I do say that well there are more sports that we should look to and not restrict our reach as well as reach of the younger generation to just a few games. The sports that earns the maximum money spends the most in publicity and hence are famous. Simple economics plays its part here too. But that keeps many of the other Heroes, whom I think are as great a sportsman as Yuvraj Singh in their respective field, away from the adequate due appreciation and adulation that they deserve.

I gave it a thought and tried to pick a few sportsman whom I have not known so well before but feel that they have made remarkable impact for India in their sports in recent times. So here are a few games and a few more heroes to be applauded.

Car Racing

While most of us sitting here were cursing India for losing to Newzealand on 16th of September 2007 in a crucial 20-20 match, there was a happy man standing on the podium of the famous Spa-Francorchamps circuit, tears flowing down his cheeks as he was proudly standing straight, with a head held high, listening to the tune of Indian national anthem being played for the first time for a GP2 Series winner. Karun Chandok was the man of the moment. He made his father's (Vicky Chandok, a Motor Sport Veteran himself) and many others' who are looking at car racing as a career, dreams come true. A true hero, appreciated even by Alonso, was missed back in India for that was the peak 0f 20-20 world cup.

Archery

While the people of the country were looking at the awesome performance of RP singh and Rohit sharma snatching the match from the home team South Africa, there were a group of archers in China fighting to get a spot and qualification for India in Olympics 2008 . Archery has been traditionally the sport of Tribals in India, but recently a whole lot of non-tribal youngsters has been making waves in the world archery. India had to qualify for the Olympics 2008 in archery and the whole effort had to be put in by group of 3 archers, lead by Jayant Talukdar, Tarundeep Rai and Rahul Banerjee. South Korea were the favourites to win the gold and chinese being the host nation had an advantage in itself. Malaysia came up with an upset beating South Korea in the semifinals while India went past the home team China in a nail biting 220-214 win. In the finals on 20th It was even more closer as India beat Malaysia 222-219 to win the men’s recurve team gold at the Asian archery championships. Surely this is a sport to look out for in Olympics for Indian sports fan.


Billiards

After the impressive array of sportsmen like like Wilson Jones, Michael Ferreira and Geet Sethi comes the name of Pankaj Advani. One of the finest billiard players in the world today. Winning many different championships across the world, he is one of the only 2 players to have won both the billiards and snooker amateur world titles.

While the cricket fans were watching a treat of a match between India and Pakistan which led to the first bowl out of a 20-20 match, there was a man standing over a cloth covered cushioned billiard table in Singapore defending for the first time in his life a world title. Pankaj Advani won that thrilling encounter to defend his title and retain the IBSF World Billiards title. What more could you ask for the person he defeated was also an Indian Dhruv Sitwala.


Hockey

Ofcourse we need to mention over here the Asia cup win that we had in hockey this year, an unbeaten team going on to win over the favourites. There is more to come for sure from this bunch of enthusiastic youngsters. Watch them in Olympics 2008.

Apart from them there are many who not just need to be mentioned but also to be encouraged so that they bring Indian glory in their field of sports. Why dont we fight for Olympics the way we want to fight for Oscars.

Badminton

There are many whom you might remember for this game but I just heard about a truly gifted child Rohit. Though not one of the best India has ever produced and the stories thereafter here is a child who fought his shortcomings to become a true champion in life. He is an inspiration to thousands of deaf and dumb children across the country. A 15 year old Rohit Bhakar, has recently beat the national under 16 champion in badminton thrice. Let us cherish these heroes who have come over a thousand things apart from learning the sports to reach to the very best levels in sports.

Squash

Joshna Chinappa, and Ritwik Bhattacharya, two of the real good squash players who have won coveted British open under 16 and under 19 championships are 2 players for us to look out for. Not to forget the coach for the game of squash who is taking the game to a new level Cyrus Poncha is going to bring India many accolades in the year to come. Saurav Ghosal and Deepika Pallikal are the other two players making it big in their world rankings.

Apart from this there are many in the shooting sports, Athletics, Boxing, wrestling, our own game of Kabbadi, swimming, wushu, Hockey and football whom we need to cheer for them to perform and take India to international glory.

Let us not ignore the world of non-cricket sport which is as important for the country as cricket. Let us cheer our boys and girls , wherever they are and whatever game they are playing.
Let us come together and celebrate the rising power of emerging Indian sports.

Teachers : they are everywhere

Teachers' Day celebration are on and all of us are remembering the days when we were young or the days of college where we had the best days of our life. But is it so that people who have taught us have only been inside the schools and colleges. I think everyone of us have learned from a thousand other things in life.

Well so today, I am thinking of all those teacher's of my life whom I have not mentioned in any of my alumini meets.

The first name that comes to my mind is Victor Hugo, rather I would say the first thing that would come to my mind is a book that changed my view on life "Les Miserables". Lessons that Jean Valjean learns in the novel while going from a Vali to Valmiki teaches you all the lessons without going through it. Every character even "Eponine" a good young girl in the house of villans teaches you devotion at the time of her death. A true masterpiece which can be reffered to teach you things at the time when life is under crisis.


The next group of people that comes to my mind is a set of slum workers who were involved with making Ganesha Idols in Ahmedabad. My house used to be very near to this slums which people of ahemdabad call "Hollywood". It is one of the most stinking and unclean place that I have ever been to. Still, I never saw these people cribbing about the place or the life they were living. In hot summers of Ahmedabad, after a whole day of hard work working on the idols, they used to sing and enjoy in the evening. Their Loud speakers in the night singing Altaf Raja songs was irritating me and disturbing me in my studies ten, but I feel it has taught me that the place that you are in is only as bad as you think it to be.

There are hundreds of NGOs that you might have heard of, trust me, go and see closely the people involved in any of it and you will strongly relate to them and learn that life is a lot more than you. I during my college days got closer to a group of people from an organization called i-volunteer, two people from the team, Rahul and Sujata are those who changed my view and made me more sensitive towards the world around me. Had talked with Sujata many times after that. She was fighting against "Child Abuse" at that time after leaving her job in the a Media company. She was there because she strongly felt about it. What difference being sensitive about the things you do can make is what I have learned from her. Last time I called her she told me, "Jay, I really think these boys and girls want to make a difference. The waters of Ganga and Yamuna are getting polluted every day and we have been doing nothing for this. Tomorrow I am going to put up a small road show along with these guys (the 15-20 like minded people that she might have found) and would like to send across the message to the people everywhere". Lesson "Do whatever little you can to change lives".

Message to everyone on this day : Look around, you will see many teachers moving with their naked little feet on the road, doing the little work of non-existence with the utmost dedication, doing things that goes unnoticed but creates a difference that is satisfying for noone else but them .

Dark horses run faster on a sunday afternoon

Every good thing has to start somewhere.

This weekend was a start of 2 such things for us.

1. we have registered a new flat on our name which is like investing all we have in something.

2. Started taking Quizzing a little more seriously.

Well am writing this blog to talk about the second. It is my wife and wife alone who keeps me pushing for attending all the quizzes and especially business quizzes that happen in the city. I also get to read a few things along with her for her preparation. Atlast it seems it was all for good and am starting i got a good Morale booster this weekend.

This Sunday at Taj Blue Diamond, happened the Pune regional Finals of Tata Crucible. There were about 125 teams which were participating in the quiz and the first round was of prelims where there were 25 questions asked based on which 2 tracks Finalist were to be decided (6 tata track teams and 6 Non Tata track teams). My wife had participated in the TATA track and me in Non-tata track. My Partner, a particularly bright quizzer from my own college and company, Adheer had lost the touch since last 1 year but was far better than what I could have ever been. And he knew many of the prelims answers ( I too knew a few, so there was definitely some contribution from my side too, Thanks to my Abha for all pestering that she has done in last one year).

The prelims were over and started the TATA track immediately after that. Abha and Deepak (Abha's Teammate, very bright and old time quizzer indeed) both started in a wonderful wonderful form and were leading the quiz in the first two rounds, and it was in the last and fourth round that the questions were to be answered on buzzer and they missed it all as the other team from TCS mumbai was very quick on buzzer. But at the end it was a very very good competition where Abha and Deepak were Runners up by a fraction of seconds. A very proud moment for me indeed :). And it was the first cash prize for my wife in her quizzing career. TATA track ended very well.

Abha's answers about the Darjling Tea logo and a Nescafe add were simply outstanding. Deepak worked out Insulin as an answer to a genric brand in cross word in an awesome manner. The other team was very very good but for me they were the winners.

WIth the start of Non TATA track, we were never expecting our names to be called as we had seen some of the best teams of the region around. Infact team 1 and team 2 were called and team 3 (who eventually won the quiz) was savoir faire (who had won the Brand Equity Quiz from the region earlier this year). I was in complete awe of that team and was looking forward to a great quiz when the fourth team called was our. Absolutely unexpected. After our team too we saw a team from Persistent which had been participating in other good quizzes. I definitely thought that we have lost it and we actually did. But getting on to the stage for the first time for a business quiz was an experience in itself for me. And that was a very proud moment for my wife :).

We knew answers to just 3 questions in the entire quiz out of which one was directed towards us ( I could guess the brad advertised and was very happy on that :)). Another thing I knew was TISCROM material was used entirely to make Howrah Bridge. Adheer knew that Date palm from india is Tamar-e-Hind which brings the present day name of Tamarind. Adheer made some wonderful guesses to work out the other questions which I had absolutely no clue about. But in the end we stood 4th with 2 other teams loosing to the 2nd and 3rd team which were ten points ahead of us. Savoir faire did it again this year. They were absolutely amazing.

But the day marked some very good moments for us. and the day shall always be remembered:).

For more details on the contest visit the website of tata crucible :http://www.tatacrucible.com/

Jaafar Mia Ki Aashiki

In the muddy construction site of a soaked monsoon, lakhi in her dirty, filthy and wet saree was walking down from the top floor of the building for which she carried the processed cement from the floor beneath.

The free bird that Lakhi is, climbing down the stairs, hardly realizes the happenings around her and enjoys singing the rajasthani songs which her Mai taught her when she was very young. Now at 19 it seems she has left her childhood way back. Suddenly, a voice from within one of the flats which is getting plastered came :

“Ae Jaafar, sala tum logo se itna kaam bhi dhang se hota nahi hai. Tere ko andar wali room ko ghisne ke lie bheja tha idhar bahar kya kar raha hai.”

Lakhi looks at the site supervisor who is scolding Jaafar for reasons that are out of Jaafar’s control. A love lost look in the eyes of a man wooing a woman is the same whether it is in the dirty inroads of a messy slum or in the posh gardens of a Kingly palace.

Jaafar not even looking at the person bullying him was watching Lakhi climb down the stairs to fetch another lot of the cement. Supervisor Nilesh was trying to avoid Lakhi who was giving him piercing looks for all that had gone unsaid before. Jaafar Oblivious to this, standing on the 12th floor of the building which in its coarse cemented look appeared as bad as the looks in Nilesh’s eyes, was just looking at a girl whom he so dearly loved.

After Lakhi was out of site Jaafar went in to plaster the walls in the rooms of the flat but could not get Lakhi out of his mind even for a second.

Jaafar wanted to express his love and desire of Lakhi to her but the hardworking rustic hardly knew how to talk to girls. Jaafar had been looking at her for the last 5 months and now the construction was going to get over in a month’s time and he knew not when would he meet Lakhi again. Lakhi silently watched all this as she flirted with half the men working there.

Jaafar at last could not resist expressing his feelings and on the wall that he was plastering, taking the broken piece of a red brick wrote “Jaafar Mia ki Aashiki”, a thing that all the other workers were to mock at in the month to come. Lakhi came to know about Jaafar’s writing on the wall and was sure for whom was it written.

Mr. Mehta stays on the 12th floor of the most elegant building in the city “Hirani Palms” with his wife and kids. The company that he owns is located in the best part of the city but it hardly gives him the time to go and enjoy the beauty of the world. He generally leaves for the office at 8 in the morning gets back by the time his children are fast asleep. Children generally spend with him their weekends. Today after coming back his house at an exceptionally late time of midnight, he went in the rooms of nisha and nidhi, his 2 sweet daughters, saw the wall which read some scrambled alphabets saying “Ni – Ni Loves Daddy” which brought a glimmer of fatherly love in the eyes of this rich man.

The wall made two people feel loved, Lakhi before a year felt equally touched with the writings of Jaafar on the same wall which was neither colored nor polished.

(This blog is inspired from a building which i visited yesterday while searching a home for myself. There was a wall on the top floor that read "jaafar mia ki aashiki")

Patient number 24 : O' Henry Meets Asit Sen (Movie Review : Khamoshi)

O Henry stories have been my favourite since childhood especially because the stories have a lot to say at the end which keeps you thinking once you have been through it. Another thing that I have liked are movies that are Emotional Romantic tragedies. It makes you live every moment of the story detailing the feelings of each character in the movie.

Yesterday I saw a movie that has a mix of both the above things. A movie that tells you a moving story of a lady, a story of a woman which was not understood by any of the males she was interacting with. Story of a strong sacrificing woman for whom her profession and her integrity towards her profession of nursing was of the utmost importance.

"Khamoshi" is a story about Patient number 24. As the movie passes different character plays the role of patient number 24 in a mental hospital and it is the story of the interaction of these characters that makes the movie such a treat to watch.



Patient Number 24 # Dev :


He is never shown completely on the screen but he is the reason for the story to start and he is the reason for the story to end. He is a charming young man who comes in the mental hospital after a heartbreak by some girl. At every step in the story along with the Radha (The nurse) you too think of how Dev might have passed through the situations that Varun is passing through. Doctor Colonel did an experiment on him by not letting him go through the normal process of medicine and curing him with love and affection. Radha helps the doctor to do the same but falls in love with Dev while the treatment is on. Dev on getting cured finds his lost love back and leaves Radha in the hospital, without even realizing that Radha loved him. Radha is love lorn and this comes to her like a bad dream.



Patient Number 24 # Varun:


Dev was never on screen but with the backdrop of his story, Director starts the story of Varun. Varun has the same problem as Dev and the Doctor wants to cure him to prove that Dev's case was not the only one and All such patients can be treated with love and affection. Doctor Cajoles Radha to get involved and she gets involved reluctantly, remembering Dev at every moment of Varun's treatment. Varun's Poetry, songs, talks, mental condition, everything keeps on reminding her of Dev. Dev who was the only person she ever loved but lost him without any fault of hers. Varun starts getting emotionally involved with the caring nature of treatment of Radha and falls in love with her. He feels it is only because of Radha that he is getting cured. For Radha Varun is like a shadow of Dev, and she is living her life again. Everytime with every touch of Varun she starts remembering Dev and the personality of Dev and Varun almost converges in her mind. She calls Varun by Dev's name in her semi concious states while being loved by Varun. Varun by her love and affection gets cured. Doctor was right. But....





The story has this wonderful twist here, no one, niether Dev and Varun nor the doctor could understand Radha. Radha passes through such a trauma of living her nightmares again that she could not bear it.

Patient Number 24 # Radha:
The story ends with Radha being the Patient number 24. The trauma results into a mental imbalance for Radha.

There are scenes in this entire story when a drop of tear would invariably flow to the corner of your eyes. One such scene is the last scene where the Matron who was so close to the nurses, is taking a call of the patients and stops at patient number 24 and you listen to a familiar laugh.


Waheeda Rehman in arguably her best performance carries the role with aplomb. You could feel the haunting memories of Dev and the pains of her duty along with her, throughout the 127 min of the movie. You live the movie from her eyes.


Dharmendra is charming in his small apperanace. Nasir Hussain in the role of the doctor, Matron Lalita Powar and Patient number 22, Deven verma adds correctly to the mood of the film. I would like to mention a special short role of love interest of Varun, played by Snehlata, who later went on to become a Gujarati films' sensation.


But the role which is most remarkable considering that it was the first movie to get released for this actor after 3-4 flop movies post his debut. This role is of Rajesh Khanna as Varun. He delivers the first great act of his career. After his debut in 1967 Rajesh Khanna did not come up with any great movies till 1969. 1969 was going to be a year or rising for this new superstar. This was the year which turned fortunes for this intense actor, and this was the first movie of the year for him. The same year he went on to give 3 more average movies (Doli, Bandhan, Do Raaste), one hit (ittefaq) and one super duper hit (Aradhna). But first in line came “Khamoshi”, at a time when there was no set image for Rajesh Khanna and he had acted in this very different role of a person who becomes mentally disturbed after an unsuccessful love affair.


But the movie, according to me belongs to “Asit Sen” (director) and “Hemant kumar” (Producer and music director). To Hemant kumar for producing such a story at times when love stories with hero –heroines singing and dancing around the trees was the trend. And to Asit sen to direct it with such a style. Most of the movies in the year 1969 were in colour but Khamoshi has its charm being a BW movie. The Art direction and use of shadows are just wonderful parts of the movie. Lightings in the room number 24 and on the looks of Dharmendra give the movie a mesmerizing effect. A special mention needs to be given for Gulzar's Dialogues and Ashutosh Mukherjee's Story.





Above all this stands the real hero of the movie : "music" . Even with just 3 songs in the movie the movie seems to have won all accolades in this field. A great background score and some heart warming songs makes the music to be one of the best classics. “Tum pukar lo..” in haunting voices of Hemant kumar sets the tone of the movie. Then comes another song which has one of the greatest lyrics ever written for hindi movies “ Hamne dekhi hai un aankhon ki mahekti khusboo… Haath se chhuke unhe rishto ka ilzaam na do…” and last but not the list to summarize the entire movie comes “who shaam kuch ajeeb thi…”. A true master piece of Music supported by a true master piece of poetry by Gulzar.





A great Story said in style deserves nothing less than a 4 *.





Suggestion: Go buy a DVD for this movie and watch it atleast once. Thanks to moser baer you can get the DVD for rs. 34.

Aate jaate khoobsurat...

What is the last thing you would like to do when you are completely absorbed in reading a nice thriller of a novel, where you want to read the next 5 pages in one look? I am sure that is to get disturbed by someone asking to move a little and make a place for him / her. Well this happens to me everyday.

Everymorning i catch a bus at 8:15 in front of my house to reach office and I catch the bus at 6 to come back. . The office bus is generally full by the time it reaches my stop in the morning and by the time I catch it in the evening. I generally like to avoid the usual hustling bustling that happens around by the passengers who dont find their seat and are standing in the space between the two seats. This is the precise reason why I always run towards the last window seat in the bus where i dont have any one to disturb me.

But Before I even start speaking about my experiences in the bus, i would like to give a brief introduction to my company. The average age of employees in my company is around 25 which is constantly decreasing as the company has been recruiting fresh graduates in thousands. Last year 30,000 were recruited and the same number is expected to join this year. So would the probability of having a fresh engineering graduate sitting next to you in the bus comes out to be around 0.60 and i must agree that is too high. The probability of this engineering graduate to have had a crush / love affair or heartbreak in the last 45 days also can be calculated to be around 0.75. Considering that you can have a really interesting person sitting next to you in the bus everyday. Would like to tell you about the 4 categories of the people whom i find sitting in the last row of the bus.

Love Birds

The best among the lot are what one of my college friend used to call “LBs”, the ever increasing clan of lovebirds in the young IT companies. They wait the whole day to meet their loved ones in the bus in the evening. College did not give them a lot of liberties for a lot of reasons that do not exist in the working life. This is a species which visits the last row of the bus most often.

Unfortunately love came in my life a lot before I got recruited here and hence the last row of bus has never been romantic at least for me. There has been a proper trend of changing behavior in these LBs over the last 2 years.

From talks about “codes and defects” they have moved to topics of greater importance like “Himesh Reshammiah’s songs and the salsa night at discs in the town”.

From clothes that were “formal” on a Monday to some sleeveless revealing tops for girls and some jazzy shoes for boys. Not that I am complaining :).

From smiles that might turn to words one day to looks that might turn to a date very soon.

From “Kal lunch pe milenge” to “Aaj shaam ko tere ghar pe movie dekhe kya”. It is definitely interesting.

The earlier generation seems to have graduated from the last rows to the first ones. The last rows are a lot more hot and happening these days.

Generally when a couple now comes and gets seated in the last row these days I stop reading because I like complete concentration in what I do. And reading does not allow me to do just that. A normal LB trip that I have come across would go something like this :

The girl keeps the bags in her lap and the boy makes himself comfortable in the last seat sitting straight. No sooner the bus starts the girl feels a lot tired by the days work and suddenly puts her head gently on the boy’s shoulders. Well the eyes meet and the look in the eyes these days seem to be a lot different from what I used to see in my times. Well by the time they starts getting cozy and are comforting each others by their touches and advances that they make, thinking that they have boarded a bus of blinds, my stop comes. And it always embarrasses me and gives me a feeling of guilt to disturb these love birds to say “Behanji zara jagah karenge? I need to get down”.

Sleepers

Well apart from love birds then there are loners, the lazy and self-contained set of people for whom the only 2 things in life are office and sleep, the latter being more important. I really hate people drooping over my shoulders while I am busy with something. And the occasional snores make you wonder about the comfort that a torn seat in an old bus bumping on bad Pune road could be giving. Slowly he loses the center of gravity that had been maintained by his continuous swinging and might either end up in your lap or will get wide awake looking at you with some kind of confused smile and getting back to the initial zero position to start oscillating all over again.

Bakars

Thirdly are that kind of loners who don’t like to be alone and others would not like to get into a discussion with them. They are the ones whom I call “Bakars” and are the most dangerous of all. They might just make you feel to shout on their face “Shut up” and all you can do would be smile and take the real “bakar” that is thrown at you.

Well have had many such with me but the most interesting one was on a day when I was absolutely immersed with Dostoevsky’s “crime and punishment” when she came across to me like the pawn breaker in the story.

She was a girl who had just come to pune from Delhi and the only concern that she had was the “crowd” in pune which she felt was not as good as Delhi. I felt as if she was telling me that all you guyz in pune look Sick. But I still kept on listening her talks about PVR priya, DU, JNU and what not. I did not have the courage to tell her that I have been there for 2 years, because saying that might have included me in her best friend list. Well in the 15 min she told me everything about her “aunt” who had been staying in Mumbai while her “uncle” was in Army, about her cousin who had a recent heartbreak, about the bad chapattis that she make. The only fear that I had in the whole story was that “would she be coming by the same bus everyday?” That was too scary for me to even think of.

From the day after that I have been taking care that I sit on a seat where the next seat does not remain empty, else I might just face her in the bus.

Audience

And then there is a fourth clan of people in the bus who like me are observers. the boring and the silent most part of the bus which is better less discussed. I would not like to talk about them because if you fall in this category you know about them already and if you don’t I would rather keep it a secret and let them observe.

But one thing that I have learned through these journeys in the last rows of the buses is to keep eyes and ears open. It is one of the best sources of entertainment that you might ever find.

Advice : Travel through bus in place of personal vehicle and reduce the pollution levels in the cities.

Its not just about Sunita...

This is not just about Sunita. Though she shares her name with Sunita Williams, who was on the front page of TOI yesterday, she represents that strata of Indians which is poles apart from Sunita Williams.

Sunita used to work in my house as a maid some months back. She was a thin lady in her mid 30s (looking like 45) from some small town of Maharashtra, near Pune. I never knew about her personal story until yesterday. There were times when we did not like her work, and her demanding less work and more money, we did not like her especially when she stopped coming to our house, saying that she is not well and kept on sending her 12-13 year old girl who was not working well at all. Even after being ill, she used to strech herself to get some extra money through working. Atlast, we have replaced her in our house with another maid before a month. The whole thing sounds so boring and so familiar, isn’t it?

But I want to discuss something more than this. Yesterday I came to know about her personal story. Her husband left her for another woman some years back. They had 2 children, one boy and one girl. And her husband took away her boy from her, leaving Sunita and her young girl child without any means to earn. Sunita came down to Pune, the land of opportunities for the IT world. She started working as maid in our building as her sister also was working for the same. She and her daughter used to earn enough to sustain themselves and the little Monica (her daughter, I don’t know if she is going to school or not). Though I don’t consider them to be very good and gentle most of the human beings, they were good.

Yesterday, I got the news that Sunita died after her chronic sickness that consumed her for months. I don’t know what would life bring for Monica now.

Well, Its not just about Sunita.

Suddenly, I see, those 30 odd maids coming to my building and think what might their lives be like? What kind of family do they have? And if they die suddenly, how would their family be supported? And after that while coming to office in the bus I saw hundreds of these people on road, working on construction sites of this developing city, Maids going in the other similar building as mine, people picking garbage, people living in small huts near the great IT park, which is like the pride of Pune….. No one cares for them as there no one has the time to do so.

I feel guilty that even when I know that these are the problems I am more concerned with my promotion, my work, my career, changing coaches of Indian cricket team, the new DLF IPO, the French open results, my onsite trip that is getting delayed and am in the same rat race of making more money. Its not that I cannot do anything for this, it just that I don’t want to. Doing it would bring me out of my comfort zone and will put me in a situation where I will have to invest my resources, time and efforts to change it and I am not ready for it. I feel ashamed.

It’s these cities where the rich is getting richer and the divide is increasing day by day. There is no safety net for the poor who work for getting this new face of “India Shining” work in the entire world. These people working for building the great malls, the IT parks, and maintaining the entire support system of the society, definitely deserves a lot more than what they are facing.

Well, today morning while coming to the office, outside my office gate I saw an agent of LIC , selling a specially designed life insurance package for the Infosys Employees, who has that extra money to invest and are working in a safe AC cubicle, solving the defects that some program is giving them. Even they are not concerned about people like Sunita, who probably doesn’t have the education or resources to understand the importance of life insurance and its impact that their family might have. If Sunita had a life insurance cover I think it would have done some good for her daughter.

I don’t know how would it be possible but I would like to see Insurance companies doing something for this along with the people for which these people are working for.

We as employers of these maids, security people or our companies as employers of many such contractual workers can do our bit in making them educated and getting a life insurance cover for them.

If a maid works in 5 houses the owners of those 5 houses can definitely pay some money towards the premium of her life insurance and make her life secured and give the earning hand of a family a safety net they can rely on.

How I wish to see a time when we will take responsibility for others in our society and might take up the issues that would not make our country a place of extremes.