The best way to know the self is feeling oneself at the moments of reckoning. The feeling of being alone, just with your senses, may lead you to think more consciously. More and more of such moments may sensitize ‘you towards you’, towards others. We become regular with introspection and retrospection. We get ‘the’ gradual connect to the higher self we may name Spirituality or God or just a Humane Conscious. We tend to get a rhythm again in life. We need to learn the art of being lonely in crowd while being part of the crowd. A multitude of loneliness in mosaic of relations! One needs to feel it severally, with conscience, before making it a way of life. One needs to live several such lonely moments. One needs to live severallyalone.

Sunday 30 June 2013

THE COLOSSAL UTTARAKHAND DISASTER: EQUALLY COLOSSAL IS THE GREED OF POLITICAL CORRUPTION (I)

Officially, the rescue operation of the stranded pilgrims and tourists in Uttarakhand is almost over. Government figures say over 1,05,000 have been evacuated. Government is capping the death toll at around 900.  Speaker of the Uttarakhand assembly says some 10,000 could be dead while the chief minister of the state says exact number of deaths would never be known. Mass cremation of bodies has begun but digging out bodies from the mud sludge with boulders, almost three metres high, is an uphill task.

And midst all this, the cry that was always there, desperately looking for a voice, is now finding its listeners, introducing us to yet another horror tale that we all knew, but wasn’t hearing about. Many cities of Uttarakhand stand devastated. With homes gone and connectivity snapped, most of the towns and villages in affected areas wear a deserted, ghost-town like look.

The two weeks of the Uttarakhand disaster, like any other calamity of this scale, have given humanity a pain that will be felt forever.

LIFE THE WAY IT IS..OR..LIFE THE WAY IT NEEDS TO BE

My reflections on life – in quotes (LV)

“The synchronized 'now',
In harmony with you, and,
The driving thrust of the imbibed reality,
..Life the way it is..or..
..Life the way it needs to be..”


©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/  

Saturday 29 June 2013

GOVERNMENT TO BRING CHANGES TO KEEP POLITICAL PARTIES OUT OF THE RTI ACT: WISH THEY HAD ACTED SO SWIFTLY TO SAVE THE UTTARAKHAND VICTIMS

It had to happen; it was not even a matter of time before we were to witness yet another shame in the name of democracy!

It was a writing on the wall that we all had read. Its precursor was made evident to us from time to time with the developments like these:

Prime Minister's Office refuses to answer RTI query on Robert Vadra citing confidentiality
NDTV, June 12, 2013

Gujarat government has not given information on Narendra Modi's travel: RTI activist
NDTV, October 03, 2012

Sonia Gandhi cites privacy, refuses to disclose info on I-T returns
TNN, Feb 24, 2012

No details of Sonia Gandhi's foreign tour under RTI
Hindustan Times, November 09, 2011

Scratch a little and one would come across plenty of such reports involving politicians across the party-lines!

And so it was not even the matter of time when they decided to act. They had to act and they acted swiftly to blunt the sharpness of the democratic weapon that had grown potentially dangerous for them after a recent development.

This June (and it is still this June only), the Central Information Commission (CIC) of India ruled that the political parties were under purview of the ‘Right To Information Act’ (RTI) by rightly exploiting the elements that define a ‘public authority’ in India. The detailed report was a result of a prolonged hearing after the RTI activists approached the CIC as the political parties denied information under the RTI Act on funding related matters.

Friday 28 June 2013

INDIAN POLITICIANS, SUPERHUMANS THEY ARE!

Indian politicians, superhuman they are, elite and super-elite, a privileged class beyond reach of the commoners, a class in its own that has grown parasitic on us, the commoners.

They exploit the impulsive sentiments of the masses to keep superiority of their class intact by selectively recruiting what the masses should be given and where they should be dealt with empty rhetoric and false promises.

Indian politicians, superhuman they are, they have started acting as if they are born to rule us. They believe and act they are greater humans than us, the superhumans, and must act to ensure that their supremacy continues.

We always see, witness and become subjects of their superhumanness.

Superhumans they are, having no concern for the emotive responses that we, the commoners, feel for and occasionally express because they feel the commoners (or say the sub-humans for them) deserved to be treated like that.

Superhumans they are, as they believe these commoners do not have a sustainable memory and they forget their humiliations easily because they do not have any dignity.

And this feeling, emboldened with our indifference to the humiliation being meted out to us, gives our superhuman politicians a free hand to exploit us at the expense of ‘us’ only. 

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/  

Thursday 27 June 2013

UTTARAKHAND: WHY RAHUL GANDHI HAD TO DO IT?

There were different justifications put forward by his party members to ‘justify’ the visit of the angry but silent man of Indian politics to Uttarakhand when the miserable chief minister of the disaster-hit Uttarakhand had said NO to further VVIP visits as these were hampering the rescue and relief operations. But how could a lesser degree of politician like Vijay Bahuguna have ordered someone like Rahul Gandhi, one of the mightiest of the lot, out.

So, we were talking about justifications. Digvijay Singh, the Congress spokersperson, said Rahul didn’t use the airway and went instead by the road and so he could not be alleged of hampering the rescue operations. We are not talking of Rahul’s intent here as intent of politicians is always questionable but Digvijay’s white lie was yet another instance telling the nation why the likes of Digvijay Singh are not and should not be taken seriously. TV channels were showing visuals of Digvijay Sing defending Rahul Gandhi (shielding behind the lame road-route logic) and Rahul Gandhi boarding a chopper in Uttarakhand on split screens.

Yet another defender of Rahul Gandhi (and there were plenty of them), Renuka Chowdhury said Rahul was concerned and he went there as a common citizen to help in relief efforts carrying with him truckloads of relief materials. The justification further said Rahul Gandhi was monitoring the relief and rescue operations in Uttarakhand. See! Rahul doesn’t believe in efficiency of his own party’s government in Uttarakhand!

Wednesday 26 June 2013

HERE, I BUILD A LIFE AGAIN..

Here, I build a life again,
From almost nothing..
Pushed by a resurrected me,
Helped by my silent prayers,
Talking to my faith in you..
 Pain, negativity, darkness,
I have been through all..
I have had to live the pain,
To counter the negativity,
To annihilate the darkness,
And I could learn to live,
With the pain in that fall..
Here, I build a life again,
From almost nothing..

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/  


Tuesday 25 June 2013

IS RAHUL GANDHI A POLITICIAN OR A COMMON CITIZEN LIKE US?

Before venturing further about superhumanness of Indian politicians in the aftermath of the Uttarakhand disaster, the Indians need to deliberate on the most burning question of the day – is Rahul Gandhi a common citizen?

Because, if, he is a common citizen, he cannot be a politician!

Indian politicians today are a privileged class much above any other social stratification while the common citizens are like those killed and stranded in different areas of Uttarakhand after the disastrous cloudburst and rains of June 16. They do not come on any priority list until they directly affect the political fortunes of the politicians.

And there is no such sorry sounding description for Rahul Gandhi. He doesn’t follow rule. He makes rules.

In fact, politicians like him prioritize about lives of over a billion of this country, much in the same way as Rahul decided to visit the state when the home minister of the country had already asked the Uttarakhand government not to allow any VVIP visit.

Monday 24 June 2013

A MAN-MADE DISASTER, THE HUMAN MISERY AND OUR SUPERHUMAN POLITICIANS

Many thousands estimated to be dead, over ten thousand still stranded and in imminent danger, yet our politicians maintain a figure hanging around 1000 – see, they have this ability to lessen the impact of death and disaster by manipulating the data – superhumans! Aren't they?

Like a man is totally helpless and hapless when the nature strikes with its fury, in the same way, the miserable Indians have resigned to their fate on being trampled over and manhandled by the politicians.

What else one should say when we, who form the nation, witness the politicians shamefully slogging out verbal volleys to hide their failure and score their prospects midst one of the biggest disasters the country has seen in the recent years – the Uttarakhand flash floods.

Failures and prospects – these two are relatively contradicting terms. What hues failure takes directly affects the prospect. It has been the norm. It is and it should still be the norm.

Sunday 23 June 2013

UTTARAKHAND DISASTER: SOME REAL GOOD JOB BY AN OVER-THE-TOP MEDIA

Right from the time when the enormity of the disastrous Uttarakhand flash floods became clear, the national media has been on it, 24/7. As the thousands trapped in the rough terrain of Uttarakhand post-floods were from across many parts of the country, the regional media, too, had a major chunk of their daily plans on it. And a human crisis deepening every day brought the international media on the scene as well.

And it has continued.

And it has torn deeply into the political doublespeak. Okay, the folks have flown unrestrained, blurring every fine line of decency in reporting a human disaster like this, but it is they only who didn’t give the politicians chance to manipulate the reality to hide the scale of calamity. The world now knows the scale of the disaster that, probably, has killed tens of thousands though the government is still hovering around a figure of 1000.

The raw reporting on the crude behavior of the politicos has forced the politicians to do more, though, even now, they are not looking sincere.

WHAT IS DARKNESS BUT..

My reflections on life – in quotes (LIV)

“..after all, what is darkness but..
..the precursor of light or the light itself..
..playing a vital role in understanding the life..
..in reading its uncertainties..
..in writing your interpretations of the uncertainties..
..to make sense of an enlivened you..


©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/  

Saturday 22 June 2013

EXISTENTIALIST AT HEART..

How do we contextualize life?
Do we feel the need of doing so?
Do we ever do so?
How often do we do so?

Or is it just a worded corollary, responding to the impulsive flare-ups of fleeting thoughts --

-- to define, defend or suppress the  ramifications of multiple sub-identities hosted on adapted and belied sanctums with juxtapositioned sentiments of extreme hours and interim sentimentalities crossworded on the life of indices and serendipities driven by the..

Friday 21 June 2013

WHY POLITICIANS ARE SO NEGATIVELY STEREOTYPED IN INDIA?

There are exceptions to it but they are now an endangered, threatened, compromised and sacrificed lot. And here, we are not talking about exceptions.

The observation made in the title of this write-up may or may not sound like a generalized statement as politicians still get elected in India’s democratic system (with a pseudo-democratic functionality), but, it, indeed, is a generic statement in the prevailing circumstances.

Say anyone that the fellow is a politician and there are 100 per cent chances that you will get a negative comment about the person. Politics and politicians in India have become synonymous with many vices of a free, socialist and civilized society. Some stand out justifying this negative stereotyping of Indian politicians.

Foremost among them is corruption. There is no need to give supporting facts when it is said that almost of the politicians of the day are corrupt. When we can witness the fall of someone like Manmohan Singh from grace, known for his honesty and integrity, in just few years, washing away decades of perseverance to build a reputation that he was known for in 2004, or even in 2009, we have valid reasons to make such statements.

Isn’t it universally known in India that whosoever gets elected through any electoral process, even at the Panchayat level (the lowest level of democratically elected body in India), sees astonishing growth in his financial fortunes in a period of few years only?

Thursday 20 June 2013

UTTARAKHAND FLASH FLOODS: IT MAY BE A NATURAL DISASTER BUT ITS ENORMITY IS MAN-MADE

The usual deafening noise in the aftermath of a catastrophe forced on us by the nature –

–        the less than enough rescue operations, as always,
–        the uncertainty over the scale of calamity, as always,
–   the reports in the aftermath that the warning signals were ignored by the administration, as always,
–        politics over the calamity, as always, and,  
–        the insensitivity over the lives lost, as always

The flash floods of Uttarakhand have caused huge devastation, on unprecedented scale, that happens in case of natural calamities of this scale where a large geographical area is affected.

But what is aggravating the situation more is the administration’s attitude. Four days on, the governments (state and union) are still maintaining a death toll of around 100 while the eye-witness and survivor accounts about it vary from 2000 to 20,000. The final figure, that may take months to compile, may come out to be even much more than 20,000, if honestly reported by the governments.

Local people from affected areas say many localities across many districts in the hilly state are washed away in the mudslide. Reports say only the Shivling of the Kedarnath Shrine is left and everything else there is gone. People from the affected parts of the state say clusters of villages at many places have disappeared.

Wednesday 19 June 2013

YOUR MEMORIES ARE..FOREVER

..It is not as if I am moving to a new life

It is just my urge to weave the thread of life again

It is not that I have forgotten you to move ahead

It is but the call from within to move again

Yes, I believe in me now, more than ever

And so, in you and your memories, that are forever..


©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/ 

Tuesday 18 June 2013

THE COMMUNAL TAG OF NARENDRA MODI: DEAR SECULARS, FLAUNT IT AT YOUR OWN PERIL

Related post: 
WHAT MAKES MODI THE MOST POPULAR POLITICAL LEADER IN THE COUNTRY?
http://severallyalone.blogspot.in/2013/06/what-makes-modi-most-popular-political.html 

And to the benefit of Narendra Modi – is the self-styled political class reading the writing on the wall?

Here, it is a combination of factors that may sound uneasy (and indeed are), and may not be good for the democratic fabric of the country, but it works well on Narendra Modi’s pro-Hindutva hardliner image.

Every political party is in (and had been in) business of befooling the people of this country and so is the BJP.

But, who is secular and who is communal is not a question for the majority of the Hindus who vote. Regional and caste priorities are the major decisive factors. Development, too speaks at some places, in some circumstances.

Secular credentials are (and have been) issues of concern for the Muslim population as well as for the self-styled secular political parties including the Congress but not for the Hindu majority at all, Hindus that form over 80 per cent of the Indian population.

But the self-styled secular parties have continued to ignore it and they didn’t face any problem in ignoring this factor until now.

WHAT MAKES MODI THE MOST POPULAR POLITICAL LEADER IN THE COUNTRY?

Irrespective of the debate - whether Narendra Modi as country’s prime minister is good or bad for India - one thing is quite clear that Modi is the most popular political leader in the country and why he is so popular is exactly the reason he is going to be the biggest vote-puller for the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the upcoming elections.

The BJP and the rest in the NDA realize it well and so the decision taken by Nitish Kumar and so the Janta Dal (United) (yes, Nitish, by his autocratic work style, has converted JDU into a one-man show) is going to hit them back if the BJP-JDU split is a true divorce!

So what makes Modi the most popular political leader in the country (not deliberating on the qualitative aspects of this popularity and its implications)?

Monday 17 June 2013

YOUR WHOLE WORLD IS WITHIN YOU

My reflections on life – in quotes (LIII)

“Your whole world is within you..defined or abstract
Talk to your inner Self..reach out to your Soul.
Seek out your Self first before reaching out to the world.
Don’t be a follower..your world has to be the reflection of You.”


©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/ 

Sunday 16 June 2013

EVERY COMING DAY IS AN OPPORTUNITY

Every coming days is an opportunity. You may feel it to be similar to what it was yesterday. It may follow the routine that you followed on the passing day. Alternatively, it may take a different approach from what happened yesterday. It may throw surprises that you thought were not going to happen to you.

Every coming day, your today, may bring thoughts and events on these lines but the fact remains there, to be seen, telling you clearly that it’s a new day with new possibilities that you need to realize. Every coming day gives you an empty space to fill it with your colours, an empty slate to write on it the elements of your own making.

Your today, the every coming day in your life, is a mix bag of possibilities existing along with the uncertainty of a tomorrow that is going to be your next today.

Saturday 15 June 2013

EVERY COMING DAY IS A MEASURE OF YOU


“Every coming day is a testimony of you, of you being ‘you’ - how do you look at life today to make sense of what it was yesterday..

-          ..whether you move forward to build further on something you built yesterday..
-          ..whether you realize and work to make the line disappear or shorter, the line that was dragging you back yesterday..
-          ..whether you realize that every day is a new day bringing with it new possibilities..
-          ..whether you realize that making sense of each passing day is a positive way to build a life..

OR,

-          ..whether you don’t realize or choose to ignore and waste the opportunity that the every coming day is for you..

..how do you get along with every coming day, how do you make sense of your every 'today', is thus a measure of you, of you being ‘you’.”


©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/ 

VINDHYACHAL TEMPLE IN PHOTOGRAPHS (II)

PHOTOGRAPHY




SHOPS NEAR MAA VINDHYAVASINI DHAM
VINDHYACHAL TEMPLE

(Vindhyachal, Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh) 

Get interactive with Banaras Calling’s Facebook extension at: 

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/

Friday 14 June 2013

VINDHYACHAL TEMPLE IN PHOTOGRAPHS (I)

PHOTOGRAPHY


MAA VINDHYAVASINI DHAM - VINDHYACHAL TEMPLE - LANE TO THE FRONT ENTRANCE
MAA VINDHYAVASINI DHAM - VINDHYACHAL TEMPLE-APPROACH TO THE FRONT ENTRANCE
MAA VINDHYAVASINI DHAM - VINDHYACHAL TEMPLE - FRONT ENTRANCE

MAA VINDHYAVASINI DHAM

VINDHYACHAL TEMPLE

(Vindhyachal, Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh) 

Get interactive with Banaras Calling’s Facebook extension at: 

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/ 

Thursday 13 June 2013

SAHAB, I WAS TRYING TO HAVE THIS BISCUIT FOR THE LAST FIVE YEARS

LIFE - COLORES INFINITUM (37)


A colleague comes from a naxal-affected belt of Odisha. Midst the raging debate on Naxals between the pro- and anti- factions at the workplace after the recent Naxal attacks, in Chhattisgarh and on train in Bihar, he narrated a small but touching incident that came across him few years ago while he was visiting his native place.

One day, visiting a rural area, he took a tea-break at a roadside tea-stall in a tribal locality.

He ordered his tea and was loitering here and there when he found a youth who must be in early 20’s staring at him with eyes of anticipation.

Clad in a worn-out and oversized outfit on a lanky built, his eyes were bulging out and he was walking absent-minded across the tiny space in front of the tea-stall as if looking desperately for some lost possession.

The colleague asked the youth if he needed something. The brief conversation went on like this:

Colleague: Why are you looking at me like this? Do you need something?
Youth: Sahab (Sir), can you buy me a cup of tea? I do not have even a penny for many days.

My colleague was not suspicious of what the youth had just said. Extreme poverty was a known thing in that area and it was more severe in case of the tribal populations which were gradually being displaced from the lands and forests without being provided an alternative to earn the livelihood. They were simply being robbed of the only thing they had, the nature with its resources that had sustained them for generations.

Wednesday 12 June 2013

NARENDRA MODI VS RAHUL GANDHI: THE DAYS AHEAD ARE GOING TO BE INTERESTING

It is interesting and the developments say it is going to be more interesting further as the rush to catch the share of voters in some assembly elections that, by the normal schedule, are to be held later this year, and in the next parliamentary elections, scheduled to be held around May next year, gets more and more into the war zone.  

It is not that the alliance formations and alliance disruptions or colourful war of words were not in previous elections.

This time too, alliances are well on the way to follow the same trajectory with the elusive ‘third-front’ again becoming a hotly debated and ‘aspired for’ destination of alliance hoppers and of opportunist political parties. That is much on the expected line.

This time too, the different shades of the colourful war of words have started taking darker hues, a clear indication that the nation is getting into the ‘ready’ mode for the high-intensity verbal duels and some unpleasant, loud campaigning.

All on the expected line!


Tuesday 11 June 2013

MODI’S ELEVATION, ADVANI’S GRATIFICATION AND SOME GOOD PUBLICITY REALIZATION

No publicity is good or bad. Every publicity event now delivers some good because it enhances the imagery in public perception by repeating on the recall value. Value system is changing. Most values have changed. They are not values anymore. Putting things this way may still be half true in the social milieu of India but it is absolutely true for the politicians and the public perception about them in the prevailing political circumstances of India.

So, irrespective of the endless discussions on the implications of the L K Advani resignation episode, the final outcome comes to the one foyer only, that it gave Bhartiya Janta Party and L K Advani some heavy dose of (and required) media exposure that, until now, for the BJP, mostly Narendra Modi or Narendra Modi related developments were getting.

Monday 10 June 2013

WHY ADVANI HAD TO DO IT?

No one can say except L K Advani but in doing so, he unwittingly gives the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and the Congress the breather that the corruption-tainted party and the alliance have been looking for, especially after the decimation it faced in the recently held bypolls where Narendra Modi performed exceedingly well.

Let’s do some wild-analysing (with some guesses):

Was it a fad of an octogenarian who was angry after his line was not taken into account in an organization that he had been a founding member of?

If that is so, like almost of the grandpas, Advani too, would be mollified after he is made feel that his importance in the outfit is still intact. Political developments are well on that way. The whole Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) leadership is in a huddle and Mr. Advani’s resignation has been rejected unanimously.

Or Mr. Adavani was worried about the larger picture that Mr. Modi’s elevation as the BJP poll committee chairman for the 2014 general elections would cause irreparable splits in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and would repel the potential allies that might join the NDA as the election approached near. Mr. Modi has a communally controversial image that many political outfits fear to identify with.

CAN’T SAY IF BHARAT NIRMAN DID HAPPEN, AND LO! HERE COMES YET ANOTHER UPA-II AD-SPEND BLOOPER

The complete write-up

We are going to be burdened (indirect effects of which we are to feel later that might come in form of some more subsidy cuts) a bit more and as usual, it is the immense wisdom of our comfortably numb prime minister Manmohan Singh that is (or going to be at play again) at play again.

But before going into that let’s scratch our heads to know a little that what Rs 200 crore can do the life of some ordinary Indians:

Let’s take a simple corollary. India is the youngest nation in the world and millions of its young representatives are staring at the prospect of a stable livelihood.

To go into that let’s pan across some data:
  1. ‘Around 7 crore people are unemployed or underemployed in India’ said Labour and Employment Minister Mallikarjun Kharge in Rajya Sabha (upper house of the Indian Parliament) last December.
  1. According to an assessment from the latest Economic Survey of India report, the per capita income of India at current prices in 2012-13 was around Rs 5200 (with the national average of Rs 61,564 an year).

Sunday 9 June 2013

TEN CARDINAL SYMPTOMS OF INDIAN POLITICS

  1. The natural, prevailing discourse about the value-system of the Indian politics is that there is no value-system at all.

  1. Politicians are a class apart. They are a new, separate, higher class, exuding elitism and are well beyond the reach of other social classes in a multilayered Indian society.

  1. Politics of the world’s largest democracy is being run by the political outfits that do not believe or practice internal party democracy. The top leadership in almost every political party is in an exclusive zone and thinks, decides and acts unilaterally.

  1. The dynasty is the flavour of the developments. Barring few outfits, almost every layer of the leadership in most of the political parties is infested with the dynasty bug. The political dynasty at the top leadership acts with absolute rule and the practice of promoting the family (sans the absolute rule element) trickles down to other layers of the party hierarchy with every other politician rushing to push his/her wife, husband, son, daughter, father, son-in-law or daughter-in-law in the political foray.

Saturday 8 June 2013

Friday 7 June 2013

CAN’T SAY IF BHARAT NIRMAN DID HAPPEN, AND LO! HERE COMES YET ANOTHER UPA-II AD-SPEND BLOOPER (II)

Continued from: 

CAN’T SAY IF BHARAT NIRMAN DID HAPPEN, AND LO! HERE COMES YET ANOTHER UPA-II AD-SPEND BLOOPER (I)


Such arguments sound sham when we come across regular reports of massive corruption in almost every government project. Almost nothing, not even the rural India centric massive projects with an ambition to cover the most parts of the nation are beyond the web of the neck-deep political and bureaucratic corruption.

Advertisements by the government departments and ministries are supposed to act as tools to aware and empower the people intended to be the beneficiaries of different programmes and projects to ask for what is rightfully and legally theirs.

Instead, their ignorance and their inability to convey the wrongs happening as reflected in the large-scale corruption tell either the government efforts to aware and empower the people are failing or the government is not at all serious about the ultimate aim of such initiatives – making aware and empower and instead is busy in bushing the beat making such advertisements a personal branding exercise for the person or group of persons involved. And if that be the case, it is certainly not an acceptable practice. Such wastage of public funds is deplorable.

Thursday 6 June 2013

CAN’T SAY IF BHARAT NIRMAN DID HAPPEN, AND LO! HERE COMES YET ANOTHER UPA-II AD-SPEND BLOOPER (I)

We are going to be burdened (indirect effects of which we are to feel later that might come in form of some more subsidy cuts) a bit more and as usual, it is the immense wisdom of our comfortably numb prime minister Manmohan Singh that is (or going to be at play again) at play again.

But before going into that let’s scratch our heads to know a little that what Rs 200 crore can do the life of some ordinary Indians:

Let’s take a simple corollary. India is the youngest nation in the world and millions of its young representatives are staring at the prospect of a stable livelihood.

To go into that let’s pan across some data:

Wednesday 5 June 2013

LET THE DEPARTED BE IN PEACE, DON’T SPIN STORIES AROUND IT, PLEASE!

No one can explain, not even the person who took his/her life, the circumstances under which he or she was forced to take his/her life.

At the same time, there cannot be any possible endorsement for such an act.

Anyway, the only thing that can be said the person could not withstand a pressure the scale of which only he could gauge and that made him to go beyond any sane sense of disappointment to choose to end the life in a desperate effort to put an end to the ensuing misery.

Death in peace or peace in death, debating this is ugly and must be avoided in such cases, philosophically or morally.

No one can ever scale the severity of the pain behind such decisions but being the fellow human beings, we all need to feel shameful that it happened in a society that proclaims to be a congregation of human civilization groups built on the concepts of humanity.

A humanity that we tread and trade, time and again!

Tuesday 4 June 2013

WHAT DAN BROWN’S INFERNO IS

Good use of the text of Dante’s Inferno: I had not read it and there will be many other readers of Dan Brown’s Inferno who are yet to read or have no plans to read Dante’s seminal Inferno (of The Divine Comedy). It was not on my reading list in the foreseeable future. And though it didn’t push creating an urge, the detailed mention of the work did push me to take Google’s help. After reading the novel, I have done my share of research and intend to read more of The Divine Comedy.

It is still a good read: Reading a book is not just a time-pass. If seen logically and on a mature note, it is one of those better investments of your time that enriches your experience, a time given that widens your span of thinking. (Okay, I am not talking here of the cheap literature.)  On this scale, Dan Brown’s Inferno is a good read. Though you don’t jump over the prospects of the page-turners as you turn-over the pages, still, you can maintain a consistent pace of reading.