Just Some Virtual, Real and Ideal Thoughts

Why We Want to be Heard?

2011-12-24T08:06:00.001+07:00

Why we want to be heard about us? Why we want ourselves to be celebrated? Why? We have a tendency of seeking out people who are recognizing whatsoever we do; and then talk about it. Acknowledge it, appreciate it, like it, love it, and count on it. Why we want to reach a wide speaking audience to broadcast ourselves?

The quest of being heard is related to happiness. Perhaps, it’s not a mere appreciation but a lust to feel important is the reason. We love ourselves almost more than anyone else and hence we feel good when everyone else along with ourselves is talking about the respective ‘am’ in us (Ah! Too many pronouns). Being important is certainly an achievement with a tag of being ‘special’. The tag ‘special’ brings happiness and also certifies a feeling for being heard and talked about.

Importance is then quantified, the magnitude of importance leads to comparison in the crowd. The crowd which has got every other a speaking audience who himself wants to be heard about. The magnitude derives statistics of that comparative index. The comparison invokes arrays of human natures among the mob. Creativity comes first. Innovation, discovery, something new, something different, being first, being apart from the crowd, so that everyone recognize the difference and acknowledge it in return. The unique attribute which leads to the practices of being celebrated among the mob. People admire, cherish and sometimes get envy. Then they talk about it or don’t but oneself have to be heard about him.

In our contemporary world, social media over internet has cashed this phenomenon of human nature. One has got a platform where he can ask himself being heard and talked about. Social media has evolved into a market place where such noises are being barter traded. It provides a reach out space to get oneself heard from even untapped territories. (Quality of social media conversations and its influence on people’s productivity is beyond the scope of this post).

Once upon a time there was a librarian, who lived alone in his house in a stranger town. He used to call on random numbers on weekends and talked about anything with anyone. He used to create hypothetical scenarios to initiate discussions. He also used to call on classifieds to buy certain stuffs and bargain, but never bought anything. He even called same numbers with different voices of his own; only to talk. Only to talk, not only to hear what other people were speaking on other side, but he wanted to hear himself as well. Because throughout the week he was the one who use to speak nothing and didn’t allowed others to do the same in his territory of work. As it was his job’s responsibility. The silence contained within him throughout the week use to freeze him and hence he had a snowfall of some lovely funny conversations during weekends.

This librarian had a classic quest for being heard.

Also, some of us wanted to be heard because they have an urge to prove something within the social ecosystem. Generically, something from the one’s past has to be mended or corrected (Again beyond scope stuff.)

Reason for this blog post is the consequences for the quest of being heard. If the quest is celebrated and one is heard, that’s success! What if, otherwise? Is that a failure? Sometimes such otherwise events lead to an emotional trauma of feeling insignificant. The exact reason of this trauma is the obsession or influence of one particular medium; which caters the solution for the quest of someone’s being heard.

In our contemporary world social media is that prominent platform. This sometimes goes too complex. This complex problem has a simpler solution which lies within one; an outside recognition doesn’t certify the unique attributes of an individual. The individual himself has to acknowledge his ‘special’ tag first. Actually the mention of one’s name in the noise of social eco-system hasn’t got that significance which is perceived. Last but not the least, where there are no expectations, any small thing is a wonder.

Just some Virtual, Real and Ideal Thoughts

FDI in Indian Retail : Dream, Nightmare or Both

2011-11-27T02:47:00.001+07:00

300 years ago British East India Company entered Indian market with a contemporary FDI.* That was a terrible mistake by that time’s decentralized India. Obviously, entry of Walmart, Carrefour, Tesco, IKEA, etc cannot have that level of Imperialistic interest over Indian Geography. But, indeed their target is the market share over the diversified Indian demography. Introduction of FDI in multi brand retail is an opportunity for people to expect something more from the buying experiences, new jobs and a direct impact to achieve a better livelihood. A threat for our neighborhood Kirana shop and established players like D-Mart, Big Bazaar, etc.

Once all hurdles are cleared**; this is will be interesting to see how the transition phase will be going along. The time before materialization of first selling operations by foreign retailers will be the most strategic phase. Today, Indian Retail Sector is a turbulent ship. Players with wrong strategies or weak fundamentals were perished severely in past. Subhiksha, Indiabulls, are such examples. Reliance retail hasn’t made its mark that prominent in this sector, although they have got a robust boosting from the parent group. But also players like D-Mart have a prominent mark in the regions where they operate. They are strategically most correct value retailers. Also, Big Bazaar which I think has the most prominent mark in the retail space (citation needed). What these existing players will be doing in the phase when the giants will step up in Indian retail space. CEOs must have sleepless night while I’m writing this blog. Existing players have two options before the new giants meet someone else approach them and have the most strategic ambitious Joint Venture like Bharti has JV with Wal-Mart; Tata Retail has the same with Tesco. Else, have a self-expansion plan so that the outside giants will avoid entering the kingdom of local giants and will seek other strategic left over locations e.g ambitions of Reliance group. And we have an abundance of such locations. Afterall we are the second largest market with growing purchasing power

As of now no company will take decision to open their value store at the same place where another player is already into operations. It is tough for existing players to further expand their expansion plans when interest repo rates are so high. They are already staring at theirs’ withheld plans from past. The current turbulent phase of global economy is indeed not the right time when government got so proactive for this decision. This is not going to tame high inflation we have today. But, todays’ high inflation has government made realize that essential commodities must have been cheaper if in past the decision of this date would have been made.

Before going any further let us have a broad, high Level Categorization of Multi-Brand Retail with mentions of domestic players and foreign giants

Value Retail – Huge Super Markets (A-Z Departmental Stores)

Indian Player- Big Bazaar, Reliance Mart

Foreign Giants- Wal-Mart, Tesco

Premium Retail – Sophisticated retail outlets, mostly specialized into certain product categories medium to large size wise

Indian Player- Shopper Stops (Apparel)

Foreign Giants- IKEA (Home Furnishing)

Note: - IKEA is considered as a single brand retailer, which has also got clearance of 100% FDI.

Convenience Stores- Neighbourhood Mom and Pop stores, small format chains

Indian Player- More, Reliance Fresh, Kirana Stores (mostly unorganised retail)

Foreign Giants- Seven Eleven

Players in above broad categories in Indian retail segment have fierce competition for market share within their group as well as from outside. They are already struggling with various cost elements which is eating up their profit margins. Many ambitious ventures are being shut down in different segments. They cannot create sufficient demand for their lying inventories which mostly includes the products not commodities.

When it comes to commodities, it is apparent that those who are involved with these commodities (less producing more distributing) are going to be direct beneficiaries. It depends on how the benefit will be passed to the grass root level of peasants and farm owners, etc. Currently, we have networks of middlemen and agro-based industries who are actual beneficiaries of the business. Players will have a fierce competition of bulk buying from these distributors. They will be selling more quantities to single buyers. ***

This all happens in the retail business, but FDI will increase the intensity of these practices. Follow this link for the prototype economic model of a hypothetical GupiansLand covering before and after scenarios of a wealthy external retail player induction into the eco-system.

This prototype model has derived that inclusion of FDI in the ideal scenario taken will not only reduce the commodity cost but inclusion of new innovative products will help the overall turnover of the industry not going in red, but in green. As derived in the prototype, FDI will help in enhancing purchasing power of potential consumers as well as it will create new consumers. Therefore, industry will grow. This will be achieved only when implications of FDI policy will have a direct positive impact over the grass root of macro-economic variables. Government has to ensure people living around poverty line are the actual beneficiaries.

Some will evolve and some will emerge, Some will survive and some will get extinct, some will rule and some struggle. Economy will be drastically transformed at the macro level. As a consumer, we are excited about our higher purchasing powers which will emerge post FDI. As a citizen, we should also expect this should be a win-win scenario.

The political debate which will circle around the Kirana stores(family owned convinience stores) will definately become a national debate. Does our economy will have enough room for everyone. Or this category of retailers will face a severe wipe-out.

Just some Virtual Real and Ideal Thoughts

* East India Company's arrival in India was also an FDI. This FDI turned political and India became a british colony. Taking the economic exploitation by Britishers side apart, the FDI resulted in infrastructural developments as well. That FDI indeed made grouped decentraqlized India a Nation as well. indeed a long debate, altough thanks to @nikhilkardale for letting people identify 300 years back we had our first FDI

**As of now Cabinet has given approval to the proposal of allowing FDI in multi brand retail. The National Drama over this decision is yet to be witnessed in coming months

***Governments control over floor pricing of commodity will help in saving of interest of farm owners. However, government failed miserably in past maintaining such policies. This has resulted in wastage of grains due to improper distribution or farmers throwing away their produce on roads as they have no buyers and lack of storage facilities. We look forward that FDI in retail could bring down some infrastructural revolutions as well to the economy.

FDI in Retail: A Prototype Micro-Economic Model

2011-11-25T23:38:00.001+07:00

GupianLand's Economy Prototype Model w.r.t FDI

Disclaimer:- The prototype model is a virtual scenario considering a set of ideal solutions only. A pure hypothesis or a random attempt of some thought experiments using what if analysis tools. Economy has got several random variables, and other possibilities cannot be denied. In this model some economic factors have been considered silent or constant.

Lets consider this scenario of GupianLand having regions namely Twitter and Facebook.

Twitter region has Distributor @JinnyBoi, Shop @Cjethmalani and one customer @TheMasakkali with a buying budget of 100 Rs.

Similarly Facebook Region has Distributor @Funjabi_Gabru, Shop @_stoic_ and customer @AbidiRuby.

Farmer @aseemrastogi2 is in Twitter region who supplies to @JinnyBoi
Farmer @TheAngrezJailer in Facebook region supplies to @funjabi Gabru

Hence, each region has respective demand of commodities worth Rs. 100

Before Week 1:-

Every week Masakkali goes shopping and shop Cjethmalani earns 10 Rupees of profit from the sales. This is his local income not considering his overheads and other expenses. This means Cjethmalani bought commodity worth Rs 90 from Distributor @JinnyBoi. Lets say that time @JinnyBoi also earned Rs. 10 of profit. This Means @JinnyBoi sold commodity in Rs. 80. aseemrastogi2 had invested Rs. 70 for that much of commodity. That Rs. 70 of FA is outside this micro economy. Similarly, earning of Customer Masakkali is sourced from outside this micro economy.

Micro economy of region FaceBook is exactly mirror image of region Twitter. (refer illustration)

As we know, in each region each Farmer, Distributer and shopkeeper are earning Rs. 10 each for every transaction made by customers worth Rs. 100.

GupianLand Government Allows FDI

Suddenly, the privacy of these two parallel micro economies functioning together is intruded by a third shop @ViralSSS , which is a bit far from both TheMasakkali and AbidiRuby. Obviously, TheMasakkali and AbidiRuby will give a damn to ViralSSS if he is selling that commodity at the same price i.e. Rs 100. He will have no income.

Shops @Cjethmalani and @_Stoic_ were earning Rs. 10 every week. Hence, that is the target earning for @ViralSSS.

Week 1:-

@ViralSSS will arrange funds from outside source to buy the stocks which can cater both TheMasakkali and AbidiRuby. @ViralSSS invested Rs. 180 to buy that stock from Funjabi_Gabru and JinnyBoi. Now he offered same commodities at Rs. 95 to both TheMasakkali and AbidiRuby. Now TheMasakkali and AbidiRuby have a benefit of Rs. 5 with this deal. So they managed to take extra efforts to reach out for buying at W. Hence, with the double turnover, @ViralSSS is managed to earn what shops @Cjethmalani and @_stoic_ used to earn every week.

This strategy by @ViralSSS, has effected @Cjethmalani and @_stoic_ very badly.

Also, TheMasakkali and AbidiRuby now have Rs. 5 extra to spend. @ViralSSS is a more prosperous guy, as he is backed by an unlimited source of money coming from some external source.

Week 2:-

Next time when TheMasakkali and AbidiRuby visited @ViralSSS, they got some new merchandise at the store. @ViralSSS communicated benefits of this merchandise. TheMasakkali and AbidiRuby bought that. So they did Rs. 105 of transaction since they had Rs. 10 extra saved from the commodities.

So by this time, @ViralSSS has not only made a double turnover but also achieved a profit almost equal to @Cjethmalani and @_stoic_. That Rs. 10 of value added merchandise is something which yields maximum profit. Since it has got the least acquisition cost but because of their unique nature they are sold at a premium.

Week 3:-

Shops @Cjethmalani and @_stoic_ are now effected by the opportunity loss of two transactions. Now they need some counter strategy to tackle the new player @ViralSSS, who is prosperous than them and has done sufficient damage to the business. @Cjethmalani and @_stoic_ decide to sell their goods at Rs 95 as well so that they can match the cost benefit of @ViralSSS.

This week @Cjethmalani and @_stoic_ retained their respective customers but they have a profit of Rs. 5 only. They had tough 3 weeks.

Week 4:-

@ViralSSS is aggressive. He cannot tolerate TheMasakkali and AbidiRuby not going elsewhere. At this point of time @ViralSSS is having Rs 190 worth of unsold commodity and Rs. 10 worth of value added merchandise. Now W has to take a vital decision. If he will further reduce the sales price of commodity he will earn TheMasakkali and AbidiRuby, but this will have a bad impact on his business for long run. As everytime they will seek that pricing. This time @ViralSSS makes a limited period offer to provide that merchandise at a discounted price if commodities worth Rs. 95 are bought from him. This week TheMasakkali and AbidiRuby bought stuffs worth Rs. 98 from W. Since that merchandise was sold at Rs 3 instead of Rs. 5.

Week 5:-

Now these shops come to know about a new product in demand by TheMasakkali and AbidiRuby. This new product has become a part of TheMasakkali and AbidiRubys lifestyle. Now they are regular buyers of it. The increased purchasing power has enhanced their spending habits. Now, shops @Cjethmalani and @_stoic_ are also buyers of the same product which @ViralSSS sells. Another outside distributor @LegRJ of the product is now accessible to @Cjethmalani and @_stoic_ as well. Now @LegRJ sells the products to @Cjethmalani and @_stoic_. But their acquisition cost is higher than that of @ViralSSS. And they have to sell this product at more attractive price to TheMasakkali and AbidiRuby.

Now TheMasakkali and AbidiRuby are the free decision makers in this market. As they are the one who represents limited demand in a micro economy which suddenly experienced new players inducing new products and additional supplies.

Week 6:-

@ViralSSS is now facing implications of his strategy taken in Week 1. He has to maintain Rs. 200 worth of commodity inventory (excluding applicable promotion/discounts) to avoid opportunity loss at any point of time. Inventory carrying cost is now a burden on @ViralSSS shop. @Cjethmalani and @_stoic_ have advantage on this part, as their inventories levels are lower and they have adopted to the changed market scenario with lesser profits w.r.t those commodities. However, newer products introduced in market are compensating their respective losses. A perpetual innovations carried out at product level has given opportunity to these shops to explore newer avenues and to compensate their reduced margin for commodities.

In this market place @Cjethmalani ,@_stoic_ and @ViralSSS has to maintain stock levels so that they will have sufficient inventory to cater these customers. Now these customers have become very wise and they are random in their buying behaviors.

Week 7:-

Distributers @JinnyBoi and @funjabi_Gabru are now also have an advantageous position. Previously each distributer had one buyer. Now each distributer has got two buyers.

There is a net increase in the demand for the commodity. @JinnyBoi and @funjabi_Gabru are getting more prosperous. Now they are enjoying the benefits of an extra buyer in the micro economy. They do negotiate to figure out win-win deals. They do bulk buying to get quantity discounts. Distributors have double inventory turnover. Hence they are willing to provide discounts. This extra money is now carried forward to the farmers who have got his income significantly increased.

Week 8:-

Rs. 200 (initial face value of the commodity) of extra inventory is now a part of this micro economic eco-system. (This is the minimum amount of unsold extra inventory at any given point of time)

Also, the farmers have become prosperous as well because of they had to increase yield of their farm/resources to cater this demand. That investment (actually induced by @ViralSSS) has made these farmers a potential consumer as well. This means a positive implication of @ViralSSS coming into this eco system was introduction of new consumers.

These new consumers are buying those new series of products which were were introduced in the economy by @ViralSSS. Demand for new innovative products is increasing. With every drop in the Price of commodities, our primitive consumers have got more purchasing powers.

Week 9:-

Implications of developments observed in Week 8 are:-

1. Commodity prices are finally settled at a lower price level in the economy of two unit of commodity consumers.

2. Economy is now evolved as a product oriented economy having 4 potential product consumers (Primitive consumers and the now prosperous farmers having better purchasing powers)

Economy is now pumped with money from outside sources which is represented by the value of unsold inventory lying with shops @Cjethmalani ,@_stoic_ and @ViralSSS. But, the value addition features of the new products have given a better profit yield to these shops. Since, the extra amount of money invested has been well compensated by new consumers evolved and profit margins of new products and services perpetually being introduced to the system.

Week 10:-

What if in Week 7, the middle men i.e distributors had gone greedy. What if they did exploitation of the farmers by asking them to produce extra crops but not giving them their fair share? What if they had gone corrupt and decided to keep most of the extra income generated in Week #7 with themselves only?

What would have been the Week of economy? If such earnings by the Distributors goes out of circulation, Dealer is keeping that (black) money with himself. On the other hand poor shops are struggling hard to attract consumers. These three shops are fighting it hard to win the best pie of the limited market demand for commodity and products.

Unaware of this scenario, peasants worked hard to get additional yields over the illusion of high demand. There will be dead inventories everywhere with peasants, distributers and shops. Distributers are wealthy, the black money with them will be hedged for this loss. Poor peasants wouldn’t have buyers for their yield. Shops are overloaded with dead stock. Consumers can only consume as per their capacity. Shops will try to sell their commodities with minimum profit. Money saved with consumer might not be consumed for other products as they are also in abundance by now.

Also, let’s assume Government comes in rescue to bail out these entities. To do so, Government had to cut its expenses as well. Such austerity measure means our primitive consumers @TheMasakkali and @AbidyRubi have lesser income now. Hence, there will be a sudden drop in the demand for the commodities and the products. There will be bears crawling all around the system.

Peasants and consumers will have their worst phase. Peasants will have no work as there is no demand for their farm produce. Consumers will have lesser money to spend. Shop keepers will be just waiting for their returns on investment with that huge pile of inventory, which is now slow moving. Since that bail out, they are now functioning at a lower turnover (w.r.t era before @ViralSSS arrived)

The outsider @ViralSSS might decide to quit this economy. Failure of W will discourage others outsiders to pump money into this economy. It will take time for the economy to run like before.

And that black money will remain black and idle doing no good to anyone. Perhaps Distributors transferred that money into bullions and real estate. Such black money got absorbed into such investments and is out of circulation from the economy.

If there is a law stating conservation of money, then by principle, first Corruption (absorption of money) at one link in the chain has resulted in depreciation for every other entity.

Just Some Virtual Real and Ideal Thoughts

Concept Document: Tweet Fixing

2011-11-17T00:42:00.001+07:00

What is Tweet Fixing?

Use of social media networking sites like Twitter to initiate a spontaneous word of mouth advertising platform for an underlying concept/ cause/product. As we know that everyday some topics trends like a wildfire on Twitter and people start discussing them to make spontaneous trends. We must have experienced our timelines trending on what opinion leaders have spoken all about. Needless to know how cricketers’ or #babyB goes trending in Indian timeline; but trending of an unknown girl wearing blue bra or Vivek Oberoi also trending with #babyB enumerates the power of people on Twitter. That power can be well channelized into some concept/ cause / product through a paid medium of Tweeples (People on Twitter) for promotion.

Such Tweeples will be referred as Secret Advertisers in the following part of this document and beyond as well.

How Tweet Fixing will work?

Such advertising campaign will be full-fledged projects. There will be a core committee of creative Twitter Consultants who will provide their consultancy for scripting how the topic has to be initiated on Twitter. A lifecycle of the campaign has to be designed covering introduction, growth, maturity and decline phase of the campaign. They will analyze and plan correct timing for launching the campaign. The designed campaign will be then executed by the Secret Advertisers strictly following the predetermined protocol(Protocol includes Plan B as well!). A moderator for secret advertisers will have a constant watch on the timeline to ensure correct execution of campaign, if they need to switch to plan B or to suspend the campaign if suddenly any real storm of topics like #babyB appears between people.

Below is the basic prototype of how timeline will function to start a successful campaign, you may find Philip Kotler also liking this prototype:-

Prototype

Secret Advertisers :- @ThePopularGirlonTwitter , @AnIntelligentBoy, @AnyTimeCritic, @ScriptedStalkers (1 to N), @popularGirl’sFemalefriend (1 to N) , @Moderator @Campaigncatalysts

Real People :- @RealStalkers @RealOpinionLeaders @followerCounters @EarlyFollowers, @laggards

Pre-requisites:- designed campaign has to have genuine public interest catching contents. Secret Advertisers should have good audience in timeline and they must be real people as well (if not, they should thoroughly behave like real people). They should be also talking about other topics before, during and after the campaign to maintain their level of authenticity.

Note:- Induction of Artificial Intelligence should be avoided in this early phase.

Timeline Skeleton

Topic Initiater -@ThePopularGirlonTwitter starts sharing her views related to campaign.

@scriptedStalker(s) and @popularGirl’sFemalefriend (s)starts interacting with her and carry forward the conversation.

@RealStalkers also join the conversation and starts spreading the campaign to the real unscripted conversations.

@AnytimeCritic intervenes with his scripted counter point of view on the campaign.

@AnIntellegentBoy comes up with solid scripted points in favor of the campaign

Identified @followercounters are followed and unknowingly involved into discussion by @thepopulargirl @Herfreind @scriptedstalkers and @campaigncatalysts

@realopinionleaders will jump in the conversation.

@earlyfollowers will follow them

Above is a complicated twitter cycle which has to be performed with intelligent combinations and strategies to pull out real conversations from people.

All above entities keep themselves involved into discussions. @Moderator is keeping eye on the timeline and will be interactively using Twitter APIs to statistically monitor the flow and direction of the campaign.

Secret advertisers will initiate and actively participate in the growth of the campaign. If the campaign is successful, the maturity stage (refer product life-cycle curve) of the campaign will not require secret advertisers to tweet more frequently on the topic. The Twitter engine will carry forward the conversation in the targeted region of campaign. This will be a testing time for @moderator to keep a watch on the timeline so that he can instruct secret advertisers on how and when to perform changes in their respective tweet frequencies for the campaign. In the decline phase @laggards will also join the conversation in the campaign followed by the kickoff of the new campaign.

Last but not the least; throughout the campaign @Moderator has the responsibility to ensure that the campaign is progressing in the positive direction.

Every entity (people) in the Twitter will have their own audience to reach. Tendency of people on Twitter is to be reached and be heard. The campaign will be using this open secret of Twitter. Although, introduction and growth phase of the campaign could be artificial or scripted. But, those who understand the soul of twitter will be convinced that maturity phase of the campaign will be the real spontaneous discussion on the campaign.

This spontaneity of the campaign will carried forward to other social networking platforms like Fakebook (read Facebook) and outside the internet world as well.

Is Tweet Fixing Ethical?

When the idea was in raw phase, I asked myself the same question and also floated this query in my timeline. The element of social responsibility in the proposal has to ensure concept/ cause / product should qualify to be genuine fundamentally. Power of twitter is so smart that a fake underlying campaign cannot move into a positive direction. Secret advertisers will only be introducing the campaign to the timeline. Gradually the discussion will grow spontaneous with real people being involved with the real feedbacks and opinions. Tweet fixing will help to let people follow a direction for what topic to discuss. In social media networking we cannot control what content is delivered by the target audience who is also a part of this mass communication.

Just some ‘Virtual Real and Ideal’ thoughts

copyright- Rajeev Srivastava

Rocks, Clouds and Trees across the lake

2011-07-28T13:53:00.002+07:00

A blanket of clouds covered the hill. They were carried down by the winds from the Pacific Ocean. Those clouds travelled so far collecting moisture from the vast sea and in-numerous islands. They settled down on a hill near to the vast lake. The euphoria of the trees on the hill didn’t allow them to think about going further. The clouds felt the reason for collecting that much amount of moisture was only meant for these trees. We can ask the wind to crawl us further away, possibly to the other side of the same island or over the vast ocean following on. “There are so many other clouds and that many other such hills, trees and people in the region; but we were destined for this particular mountain and those euphoric trees!” unanimously thought all those clouds and covered the hill under that mighty white blanket. The clouds in love with those euphoric trees reached every corner of the hill and talked with those trees. The trees in joy were combed by the accompanied wind. They danced in every possible way to express their gratitude towards the clouds and the wind for being with them after such a long spell of heat and humidity. Nature spread love in the atmosphere.

The inexpressive rocks looked unaffected in that atmosphere. A cloud thought why they are like that; so different from the trees. They are unmoved, just allowing the water to spread and pass through their surface. Our presence hardly bothered them. Even the bushes around them are so happy; they are trying to jump and see a glimpse of this nature’s song on the other side of that inexpressive rock. But these rocks are not giving us any sign to show what they are up to. What they are thinking? Why our presence or absence is nothing but just another evening for them. Look at the vast lake; it has become a mirror of us. Lilies in that lake appear laughing with joy. Folks in Multinlupa City are watching this beauty. Even look at that guy with some internal conflicts in a building at that distant extension of the lake; he has almost become a part of us. Everyone I can see is one way or another inspired except for these inexpressive rocks.

A rock knew what that cloud in particular has thought about him. That rock had thousands of pores within him and he had witnessed that many incarnations of that cloud. That rock has grown from a pebble to a big stone. Every time when the clouds came he got some new pores by virtue of the moisture they bought down to the hill. These new pores are sign which that inquisitive cloud was searching for. By the time this way of expression by rocks will come, clouds will die away. These clouds will never know how happy the masses of stone were when they arrived. The hardness of the rock never allowed him to hold those precious gifts from the cloud. But, those tiny pores within him allow seepage of the moisture through the depth of the stone. This goes un-noticed every time. When these clouds disappear and Sun comes overhead, a process of evaporation tries to take away all the moisture rocks have with them. That expansion of the pores does a painful weathering of stones. Rocks lose moisture and loose soil; days after the clouds came and disappeared after unconditionally giving away all the moisture they had.

Trees also know what some clouds feel over the inexpressive constraints of the stones. Hence, they pamper and flirt with clouds so that they forget the dilemma over their own presence. Trees have learnt this art over generations. Existence of rocks and clouds is for trees and other forms of life. One gives them water and other gives them nutrition. Hence they dance to give joy in return to rocks and clouds at this reunion. Trees have lived with rocks and learnt how to be strong and stable. The friendship with winds have taught them flexibility and expressiveness. Winds have whispered so many stories of mankind to them. Those rocks have listened as well. The appearance of clouds makes this a perfect reunion by nature. And this reunion is scheduled for every form of life in the ecology. This is the purpose which makes the clouds travel that far, only to disappear ultimately. Rocks have lived thousands of years to provide an enormous amount of fertile soil and stability. Generation by generations trees have served the purpose of life and livelihood for all sorts of life.

In this process, winds have been a connecting thread with everyone and they narrated a fable; how someone at some distance is experiencing elements of clouds, rocks and trees within himself through his internal conflicts.

RaZZevZ.com / Internal Conflicts

Stanley Ka Dabba

2011-05-28T13:22:00.004+07:00

A Tiffin box, which had a lower significant value in our respective life; was a dominant factor for Stanley. Stanley and his short story revolve around his struggle for food during school recess and a series of events associated with it. Stanley’s struggle for an afternoon meal; makes one feel really privileged that we have/had a relatively simpler life.

Stanley used to go school hours before school start time and never used to bring his afternoon meal. But, he didn’t faced any discrimination from his classmates. Nobody in his school was unaware about his family whereabouts and reasons for not bringing his meal, but they all shared their tiffins with Stanley during recess. But it was a teacher of them who use to forcefully eat meal of the kids, verbally abused and discriminated Stanley for not bringing his afternoon meal. In the later part of the story Stanley devised a solution for this problem.

The screenplay of the above simple story is very intense, which is reflected through the love of Stanley’s classmates towards him. The narrations of Stanley were artistically presented. Those fake narrations later revealed as the tactics of Stanley to hide his sorrow and show the world how happy his life is. Stanley ka dabba which appeared a simpler story in its initial 90% had an intense climax when it was revealed that Stanley was recently orphaned. His caretaker uncle is using him as a child labour in his filthy restaurant. A sudden transformation of a bright school kid into a child worker at a restaurant cleaning tables and serving water was a shock to the audience. The luminance of Stanley at school was eclipsed by the darkness of this social evil. He represented and even looked like a child worker in ours’ neighbourhood who is everywhere known as ‘chotu’. Stanley’s story says that every single child workers which we have seen but ignored has got a unique story of them; their dreams, aspirations, struggles, cries & laughs, the reasons, and the ignorance from the society. There are many Stanleys’ in our country and other parts of the world, who are engulfed by the devil called child labour.

The haunting questions (also reasons for writing this blog) which an audience is left with is what as an individual who has got a relatively far simpler life than Stanley is going to do after watching this movie. What is the social responsibility of “me” as an individual who has always known but ignored this social evil. As a hobby economist, one has always condemned child labour and seeked government to be proactive and eradicate the evil. But what has really been done to kill this social evil by an individual like us. Answer from writer of this blog is ‘nothing significant’. Why one is feeling so pity for Stanley after watching his background in the dark hall of multiplex. Why the child labours in bright day light are successful in being unnoticed? Why we don’t feel pity for them?

Stanley had some unfair attributes to his personal story, which nobody knew in his brighter side of life. His sorrows were empowered by his cute narrations of how his mother prepared last night’s leftover unsold restaurant food with the efforts and affection involved. This was packed by the cook (unofficial but actual guardian of Stanley) of his uncle’s restaurant. In the end, that dabba was shared with every important character of the story excluding the ‘gormandize but no apologize’ teacher of Stanley who left the school out of a self guilt for discriminating Stanley for not bringing meal to school. Stanley’s strength to hide his tragedy and associated sorrows asked a big question, how strong enough you are as a person to deal with your daily life problems?

RaZZevZ.com/Social Responsibility

Help Mohini Sharma

2011-02-14T01:49:00.001+07:00

Help Mohini Sharma

Insignificant contributions added together achieve a significant goal. To me Rupees 300 means a couple of movie tickets or more at the nearest multiplex or few bottles of beer or anything else. But, Rupees 300 contributed by 350 volunteers would mean a power wheel chair for Mohini Sharma.

Mohini Sharma is suffering from Spinal Muscular Atrophy. She had been doing home based job past 7 years after completing B.Com. Now she wants to explore her working abilities to go out of her home based job profiles. At present, Mohini is facing a unwillingness from employers to hire someone with a wheelchair. A power wheel chair can provide Mohini an unmatched mobility and independence to get a suitable job for Mohini for her abilities.

Remember a simpler, uncomplicated life of ours is an opportunity to make others’ life better. To contribute, please notify either me or
helpmohinisharma@gmail.com

This is an initiative by my friend circle on Twitter. Follow my friends in this initiative on twitter:-
http://twitter.com/themasakkali
http://twitter.com/cinemagik

More about Mohini Sharma on:-
http://magikcinemagik.blogspot.com/2011/02/appeal-from-mohini-sharma.html

RaZZevZ.com/LetsDoSomethingGood

Future of World Economy (Part 2)

2010-06-28T01:12:00.005+07:00

As wealth can nether be neither created nor destroyed, just imagine how much of prosperity can be gained if there is no violence and terrorism. However, factors like increasing population can say that in timeline gross wealth can be increased, but at any given limited time frame gross wealth of the world is constant.* There will be more money allocated to remove poverty. Purchasing power of people will go high and loss of property and lives will be minimized. There will be more investments in infrastructure and obviously standard of living in the third world will be upgraded. But, this is an unlikely scenario in the present world. Every nation is unsecured by its neighbor.

The firework dilemma*:

With so much money spent in the fireworks, once a thought appeared; what if people stop wasting money in the firework. So much money can be saved. But economy is interdependent. Macro economy is an integration of all such micro economies. If firework industry will go busted, dependent workers will lose jobs. For many they may not be compatible skill wise to migrate to other works. Those who will manage to migrate with their skills or to other skills will dilute the net workforce demand of corresponding sectors. This will influence lower pay scale among people in the interdependent economies. Same effect will be observed in the dependent sectors of firework economy. This is an effect of job loss in one sector. Same is happening at the Gulf of Mexico. An Oil Spill has ruined so many lives. Same happened in the recent recession aftermaths.

Secondly, where the saved money has gone? It could be invested in other sectors, could be dormant and out of the circulation, or money saved could create extra demand for certain commodities and hence will be responsible for inflation.

Gradually, economy has the potential of adaptability. It is a complex debate, how any sector busted will upgrade or degrade economy as a whole. Certainly, a strategic thinking can make this sustainable and acceptable to the economic ecology.

Afghanistan is now said to be sitting on the wealth of buried minerals under those rusted Russian Tanks and opium poppies. The Afghanistan economy can witness a boost, if these minerals are accessed. The access will result in investments in infrastructures, better livelihood and millions of jobs to Afghan people and inflow of foreign exchange for the poor economy. Hopefully the clouds of a war struck nation will fade away for their prosperity. In the same way Gaza blockade removal can boost that many sectors in the region which are now under not allowed list by Israel.

The previous blog post discussed how BRIC has evolved as emerging economies and how they are going to influence decision makers for coming decades. These economies are also facing challenges to overcome and become World Powers.

Poverty is primary among them. These nations are not homogenously developed. As Western Russia is developed, but remaining part is underdeveloped. People still live nomadic life in the interiors of Russia. Same with China, western part is not that prosperous in comparison with Eastern part having the coastline. Same is with Brazil and India. The wealth transferred doesn’t reach everyone in the same ratio.

Infrastructure is another challenge. This is the area where BRIC nations have started investing into, so that they can make their selves ready for the forthcoming growth. Infrastructure plays a really big role in a nation’s progress. Imagine how a small railway station where only few all stop trains halt in 24 hours contributes towards the micro level economy of that village. When the tracks were being laid and station was built many locals got involved in the construction work. Some people got an opportunity to have a part time income of selling food stuffs when train halts. Some people took this as a full time vacation to reach distant places as train vendors selling food and local crafts. Some educated also got job at the station for some different roles. That village stations served nearby villages too. Those who had bulls with them will earn livelihood by providing transportation facilities. Those were the benefits to count but listed few. They were all new vocations created by single tracks of railway line with couple of platforms. Point of emphasis is the role of infrastructure, enabling wealth to reach those places where it was not before. With infrastructure reaching interior parts of the economy, it will result in increase of gross consumption and hence will guide growth in GDP. That will be the payback or return on investment in the economy.

Defense investment is a necessary evil, as it safeguards investments done throughout the economy. But, lesser this evil more is prosperity. That is why USA is ridiculed by its own mass for heavy investments in Afghan and Iraq wars. Terrorism and internal violence is a major challenge for all economies in todays world.

Illiteracy is a challenge and Education is a weapon to eradicate the evils of an economy and lead it to the path of prosperity. If people are educated and dignified of knowledge they will not be brainwashed to con tribute devil’s underground economy. Underworld is also a parallel economy, which sucks the wealth out of the white system. Any contribution in grey economy doesn’t ads to the GDP of a nation.

Corruption is another devil which really blocks the economic growth. The World Bank loan becomes a Swiss Bank deposit. World Bank or IMF receives their paybacks by hard earned Income Tax or GST or VAT paid by common mass who are still deprived of those benefits which were actually meant for them. If economies owners will go honest, imagine how much of prosperity can be gained.

Communist philosophy of Marx was based on this ideal scenario where everyone got its equivalent share of his/her contribution towards economy. Where state did all the earning and does equivalent distribution of wealth among people. However, this philosophy upon its implementation went on extreme resulting in exploitation of folks and corruption by officials. It is now ended in Russia, transformed in China. Communist ideology is now only confined to lesser know regions like N.Korea or Cuba who have minimum connectivity and responsibility towards world economy.

RaZZevZ.com/Economics

*Fireworks dilemma is writetr's own hypothesis, RaZZevZ.com welcome your responses on this dilemma

Part 3 will feature the Economic Hopes of Africa.

Future of World Economy

2010-06-27T15:54:00.001+07:00

Part 1

10 years ago, 80% of world wealth was produced by the developed world, viz. North America and EU. In 2010, scenario has changed 75% of world wealth is now produced emerging economies. Among emerging economies BRIC is the building block of ‘The Change’ in the economic pattern in past decade and the forthcoming decades. BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India & China) is growing like anything. These emerging economies have their own features which distinguishes it from other. And these features are responsible for theirs’ own sustainable growth. By virtue of this growth, there is a demand for these economies to have a commanding voice in International financial agencies like the World Bank and the IMF.

The developed economies themselves are in a recovery mode. Reforms are there everywhere. Europe is undergoing a phase of cuts and high taxes to reduce their liabilities. Greece and Spain are under crisis. Great Britain has also induced toughest economic reforms to avoid being another Greece or Spain. Euro may be split in future, as Robust economies (France, Germany, etc) in Euro Zone wants to avoid economic dangers from weaker economies in Euro Zone (like Greece, Spain, EU members from Eastern Europe)

According to UN Sec Gen, Mr. Ban Ki Moon (In World Global Summit, a CNBC show), vision of United Nations is to create 420 Million new Jobs by 2015 for the sustainable world economic growth. Around that much of job had been lost by the global recession last year. Flow of money from developed economies will be directed towards developing economies. This flow of money will be in the form of investments to set up new ventures in such areas. Emerging economies like BRIC, will be the direct beneficiaries. There will be changes and economic reforms all over in the coming years. Emerging economies are poised to deliver financial recovery in coming years to follow.

Now the question is what are the unique features of BRIC economies which is making them performers and gradually evolving policy makers of the world economy. India has itself a vast potential consumer base. It has a potential to sustain in deeper recessions only by serving the demands of their domestic consumption. India had been eyed as a market of interest for many. And hence, India is witnessing FDIs. Political instability had been a blockade of economic growth in India. Now it doesn’t seems. China has a potential for its huge manufacturing base, which is delivering to every continent. Chinese policy disallows money invested in its land to go out for a certain period of time. This is resulting in higher purchasing power of its people and hence strengthening their demands by theirs’ domestic consumptions. Similarly Brazil is a manufacturer for the world and witnessing economic prosperity with an influx of foreign investments on its land. Russia so far known as an economy based on its raw material resources has now opened its arm to the world to diversify their economy. Now Russia will no longer dependent on its Coal, oil and Natural gas supplies to the Europe. Indeed, Russia is on a way to be an economic supreme by investing in other industries like the new Silicon Valley. Russian Silicon Valley will definitely bring a revolution to the world economy. They are going techie and will produce value addition of Russian creativity.

Wealth is like energy. Neither created nor destroyed. If any country will print extra currency bills it will increase purchasing power of people, raise demand for commodities, reduce monetary value and hence inflation. Therefore, the gross Global wealth is constant. Now the emerging economies have started taking bigger shares of this wealth every year. China and Brazil majorly catering to the consumption of the globe, BRIC economies extracting the natural resources are pulling the flow of wealth towards their respective regions. The European economies by virtue of their consumption more than production have witnessed the debt crisis. Now, they are focusing on the cuts and reducing social liability to balance out the difference between consumption and production. In the past decade flow of wealth is shifted.

Loss of some is the gain of others. BRIC is enjoying a prosperous growth rate by virtue of this. World economy is progressing towards a balancing equilibrium, already developed economies loosing and developing one grabbing. But, how long this will continue?

If we analyze the economic history, after the industrial revolution post renaissance; current developed economies created wealth for themselves by manufacturing of goods on a larger scale. With the economies growing and labor cost becoming higher, they began outsourcing from several developing locations worldwide. These economies became developed because of manufacturing. Now USA is also targeting to further invest in the manufacturing sector. If the invest in manufacturing will go high, BRIC can witness a reduction in the demands for the supply from their respective regions. This is going to be a way ahead of future scenario. Because in present World of West, the production cost will be really high. To start a manufacturing based economy, they first have to go that low to meet the sustainable requirements of a manufacturing based economy.

To secure wealth, Intellectual Property is one such means. With the globalization, technology is no more one economy’s advantage. Now, everyone has an access to it. Success of BRIC lies over here. They are prospering because of the technology they got shared by west, and development of their own indigenous method which got acceptance of worldwide consumption. Mainly China, Chinese goods are made for worldwide consumption. China is now doing both outsourcing and exports.

Information Technology had been an Indian success story. Mainly an outsourcing of skills, Industries growing all around the world require a support of Information Technology, and now these support services have become a major contributor to Indian GDP. India is also a diversified economy. The green revolution of 60s, has not only made India self sufficient but also supplying to the demand outside.

End of Part 1

RaZZevZ.com/Economics

G8, G20 and the World Today

2010-06-26T00:47:00.001+07:00

At the time of writing this article G8 summit has begun in Canada, which will be followed by G20 summit later on, this weekend. Developing economies are going to play a vital role in strengthening and restructuring world economy. Reforms for IMF and The World Bank are already in the pipeline. Economies like India, Brazil, China and Japan have a major role to play in making a prosperous world economy which is being under a constant unstable equilibrium. Global Recession originated in USA is over, but flaws of several economies like Greece, Spain and Japan had been exposed in the recent past. Features of Macro economics are prevailed in the cluster of theirs’ corresponding innumerous micro economies. However, Global economy is a cluster of such Macro Economies. Globalized economy where all economies are inter-related, setbacks or reforms on one will influence others with respective effects. However, North Korea is an exception to that, an unknown isolated part of the globe.

North Korea, these days featured in FIFA #WorldCup and observing 60 years of the #KoreanWar; memories of the forgotten war between the two Korean nations is being done these days. That was a war, which involved USSR, China, USA and western allies supporting theirs’ respective ideologies. The Korean War indeed a war between democracy (or Capitalism) and Communist ideologies, in the early ages of cold war era. (Recommendation- Watch 71 into the fire; A south Korean Movie based on the true story of 71 student soldiers who heroically provide resistance to North Korean army’s invasion)

Hopefully, someday North Korea will be open to the world. Like other nations of communist ideologies like China and Russia who have a wider influence on world politics and economics.

#G8 and #G20 summits, there are so many hopes associated with it. Greek or Spanish economies are undergoing tremendous reforms through tough decisions and protests. The brokenness of these economies has alarmed the world. That is Japan is also undergoing reforms and China is consequently revaluating its currency to be more open and secure to the world. Indian economy is supposed secured, no wonder it could be a mirage not noticed in a fabulous growth rate in GDP of 8+ % per annum.

Economy is the main focus of this summit, overshadowing the concern of climate change. Rebalancing of World economy is the primary focus. America has announced more economic reforms to come in coming days, in the form of new banking laws. These reforms will be toughest since the reforms implemented in 1930s after the great depression of USA. Last year G20 summits concluded with a vision to prosper Africa. Investments has been made, work in progress and results yet to be delivered.

In today’s world, we still have war wound territories like #Gaza, #Afghanistan and Iraq along, failed states like Somalia and isolated economies like North Korea. Gaza, it is sad to learn about the miseries of people, who have got many commodities, almost, everything blockaded by Israel. Knowledge of Afghanistan’s potential mineral wealth is good but sarcastic news. The war struck land lock country, deeply addicted by Taliban and opium. India and China are desperate to grab these wealth and opportunity for prosperity for the locals. For India, it won’t be that easy by virtue of dependency on Pakistan for the transportation route needs.

Economy is also catalyzed by peace. Sadly, we have weaker states like #Kyrgyzstan who are witnessing ethnic violence and humanitarian loss all around. The Gulf of Mexico, has also suffered huge job loss by virtue of the BP Oil Spill. Effect on the Environment is another major concern in this region.

Russia is now opening its arms to the world. They have realized dependency on energy sources and raw materials alone will not let them to prosperity in the world today era where emerging economies are at sprint. The Russian #SiliconValley will certainly open avenues not only for Russians but also for many economies.

Last but not the least; football for a hope has really out played every bit of concern among all of us. This Euphoria is amazingly celebrated by not only by 32 countries, in fact every country. Football #WorldCup has certainly grown bigger than Olympics in popularity. #WorldCup is certainly the bigger summit which has woven people from different nations into a single fabric.
Hopefully, this G8 + G20 summit will have a remarkable mark in the world history, in the years to come.

RaZZevZ.com/ Current Affairs

For My Parents

2010-06-25T12:07:00.002+07:00

For My Parents

Even on phone I can see tears of happiness, which is evident in Mummy’s voice. She all the time felt sad whenever one reason or another not allowed me to visit my home town. But mom never let me know what she felts and encourages me to focus on my work. I always feel being pampered, miles apart on the phone call. We talk about so many things, family matters, how I am doing, my future plans, climate and precautions on its change, stories from mythology on random references, etc. Papa, we always do technical discussions like how to save Income Tax under section 80C & 80D, what are my plans pursuing MBA? Scope of 1 year programs after getting more experience, etc; but there is always a hidden message of missing and loving me.

I miss my parents too. Twinkle in mummy’s eyes when she saw me so happy after we bought that Red Jacket in a garment shop. That was my favorite apparel then. My graduation days, every time Mummy came to railway station for ‘see off’, on my train to Kolkata. With the train accelerating away from the platform, me watching through the window, followed by standing at coach’s entrance saw mummy standing there and waving me. In between pallu of her saree gets directed to her eyes by her left hand. I can see mummy standing there till the platform is visible to me. And She remains there till the last coach of train is visible to her. This happens always. Indeed, A very loving moment. This is real love, immortal. I wish if I had more days of vacation in those semester breaks. Mamma’s love is evident in those hands knitted sweaters, or that woolen cap which covered my head and tied around my #ShinChan cheeks when I was 5. Love is knitted in those apparels, which she finished while teaching in school, watching TV and basking the Sun in winter days. That time our studies were monitored. I remember I pretended but not studied, caught and then taught by Mom herself. And I studied Mathematics from Papa, subject to his availability. Surely that’s a legacy I have. I had marathon mathematics days whenever Papa got time to be at home. Still remember in class X, We together cracked one such haunted problem of quadratic equations once. Certainly, teamwork began from home.

Papa seldom plays cricket. He was a volleyball player in his time. One day it was a big surprise to me when I discovered Papa is a left hand batsman. Mummy and Papa are very good in storytelling. So many short stories with high value moral, really these stories are the legacy.

I am a proud Mamma’s boy! Thanks for your patience and serenity to accept that there are no more semester breaks in my job. Miss u mom! Miss u dad!

RaZZevZ.com/Memories

I want my Mumbai to be Wonderful

2010-05-09T17:30:00.002+07:00

Completely annoyed with the infrastructures of Mumbai, three years back when I moved to Mumbai for my first job after completing my graduation from Kolkata; I appreciated the flavor of this town. That was the time when I was discovering the novelty of this town. I took them sportingly, similar level of trauma that I am still experiencing while commuting from one place to other in this town. I was driven away by the spirit of Mumbaikar, who is brave enough to face all such challenges of daily life and always reaches his/her destination on time. Also, then I had the glimpse of coming future, with sea link in function, metro on the move and all such construction in WIP will be accomplished asap. Then, this place will be a wonderful place to live. I wrote “A pilgrim through the roads of Mumbai”, appreciating my experiences while commuting through the town. Pilgrim, comes with a difficulty, that’s what it is.
But, I now have a question to all countrymen of a growing economy. Can’t we deserve better infrastructures? Why we have adopted us so well to the deficiency of something which is now I feel is a basic necessity of life and in fact our fundamental right. How long we will appreciate this? In fact, we have developed a misconception that Mumbai is developed and other cities in India are not at par with this development. This is the background reason behind; many people have migrated to this place in search of employment and settled here. It is bound to happen for a port city, throughout the world port cities have the extra advantage of a better growth rate.
But, Mumbai’s infrastructure is not complying with the growth it is witnessing in business. With lack of infrastructures, we may witness businesses moving away from this city. I see this as a lack of political will, which is catalyzing mushrooming of corruption. Construction work are delayed by one and another reason, major projects are not yet finalized, roads are uneven, pollution is on its extreme, and public transportation is not up to the mark. Why we compare Mumbai with other cities. Why not compare it with world level cities.
I want my Mumbai to be a better and safer place to live. Don’t you wish the same?

Long Time no Blog

2010-04-26T08:36:00.001+07:00

I blog when I feel, not just to FILL spaces. Always I tried to refrain myself from using the word “I”. The circumstances of a hectic life didn’t allowed me to feel to that extent that ‘I’ blog down anything in past three months (110 days precisely). Some credit goes to Twitter also, for making my feelings confined to 140 characters. Actually, I love twitter for that; since it allowed posting my one line emotions on web, which couldn’t have been blogged. When I see my twistory, I get a log of what, when and how I was thinking.
In the course of 4 years of my blogging past, I got explored my feelings through some contemporary current issues and some beautiful emotions of wonderful memories. With materialism going higher, the beauty of those emotions took a back stage. I am a strong supporter of individualism; my blog so far has reflected it in one or another way. This individualism however doesn’t support any grey thoughts of Egoism. It is just an identity, an anonymous yet some individual.
Individualism is better defined as unique set of attributes for an entity.
Well, blogging is an attribute of my individualism; it went on an idle mode tough in past 110 days. This blog is more of an excuse or reasoning or set facts I am presenting to myself. But, reason for sharing this internal communication on RaZZevZ.com is only because I feel it to be there.
Well, it was not a scenario that I wasn’t feeling anything in past few days or I didn’t had any better topic to blog down. In fact a co-ordination of feeling and blogging it down was not there. For anything else within 140 characters, Twitter was there to be shared.
There had been lot of happenings with me in past three months. Different roles and responsibilities, different cuisines, meeting people and visiting places and many more things I did and experienced in the recent past. My job seeked more of me to be focused there, and most of my experiences in my job fall under the IP norms and hence they cannot be shared on this blog. I love my job.
My feelings became my expressiveness on my personal relations front. Everyone is right in their own perspectives and it is a part of life, and everyone has to live with it. So called ‘duniyadari’ in Indian language, I gave a damn to it and continued so far with me and my individualism. (Did I sound stubborn., who cares!)
I had a thoughtful instance when a shoe polish guy replaced old lace of my shoes with a new one; he made a beautiful macramé craft of the old lace. I dug out into my memories of my Shantiniketan visit in a cluster development program, where we visited to improve working conditions of artisans involved in Solapith and macramé crafts. Cheers for my buddies, who were with me in the Fakibaaz group.
My blogs generally get some sort of hyperlinks like this, with instances of some beautiful memories. This thought process can not be concluded in this blog. It is a perpetual active attribute of me.
I felt I wrote., that’s it as of now
RaZZevZ.com / Editorial

Winter

2010-01-05T14:24:00.002+07:00

Tiny drops of overnight dew covered petals on the Crimson Rose and laughing marigold with the surrounding engulfed in the dense fog. The view of the Bagh having Mango, Eucalyptus, Paniyala*, Guava, Ashok trees, with a Mazar in the center and some wandering livestock struggling to keep them fed and warm in the extreme cold came out as a painting on a vast canvas. Tiny hogs in the a bit distant bagh running to and fro around their mother, a crow sitting on the aluminium electric wire with his speaking eyes and sharp peak looking in all possible directions and suddenly flies away downwards to ground with wings wide open, a silent moving stray dog on the street, a hiding cat in neighbor’s garage, an invisible wandering soul and the shivering cold. Visibility had been very low in the density of the fog, cold waves penetrated across the body and fog was also coming out of the mouth.

Head to toes, only eyes, nose and mouth and surrounding cheekbones were exposed to the penetrating winter air. Holding a hot cup of tea, in palms wrapped in woolen gloves, a relief was witnessed when the warmth of the tea passed through the food pipe. Pakoda of onion and chili topped up some more heat in the moments of shrunken mercury in the thermometer. The room heater made the inside different from the outside. Gradually everyone decided to sit in Aangan around the firewood (the residual wooden skins stored when last time there had been some carpenter work at home were burned in a big wrought iron plate which was once bought when there had been some mason work at home). This was a moment of family sitting together gossiping on the current issues, family dreams, future plans, some stories from Hindu Mythology and what special to have in lunch that day!

Stories of mythology, one such recalled story was of the squirrels that gave their full dedication in imparting theirs’ insignificant contributions of adding small weathered pieces of rocks and mud in between the heavy (but floating!) rocks when ‘The Ram Setu’ was being constructed at Rameshwaram. Theirs’ insignificant contributions integrated together became a significant and evident when it strengthened and bonded those rocks together, to make a bridge to Lanka. Lord Ram became emotional to the unconditional love of squirrels towards him and his motive. Out of praise and love, he took and touched some of them on their back with his index, middle and ring finger in his palm. Since, then squirrels carry mark of love from Ram on their back as a legacy, which can be seen through those shiny black lines on their back. It became an integral part of their genetic code and transferred through generations in their evolution.

Still there had been no mark of sun in the sky. Schools were closed as per the instructions from district administration, everyone at home enjoying some programs on TV. Oops! Load shedding, everything went dark on that just another but memorable winter morning. Now the teenagers gathered together for the all time favorite cricket match in the public park of locality surrounded by all of their houses. The simulated stadium with each house around the park resembled stands of the stadium. Elderly folks on the terrace and passerby on the streets served as the spectators of a simulated professional cricket match of childhood. Girls as usual disliked cricket, came up with theirs’ badminton rackets and found their corner of a pleasured winter morning. After sometime, the fog dissipated and Suryadev (i.e. Sun) appeared to give his portion of warmth to this part of the town. Tired kids however went home for lunch and did some study on their terrace as a vital preparation for forthcoming annual examinations. This was the time when mothers had a time to monitor their child’s progress in studies and they did it while knitting the sweaters which will be ready to wear in few days.

The sparrows also comes to visit the terrace of such houses, in search of some wheat grains or puddings which they bring it back to their nests for their siblings. On one such terrace a boy and his sister are playing with a pigeon named ‘Guntu’ which became their family member since he was sheltered by them when he had some internal injury and was not able to fly. Guntu, a white pigeon with some black spots randomly spread in some fibonacci sequence; he is a guest to the family and living without any cage. Someday Guntu disappeared in mystery. Perhaps, he was healed and found some partner. As before he disappeared he started taking small flights away from home. But, always returned back. Guntu lived in one of the cupboards, which was purposely emptied for him and was taken to terrace everyday for basking. After his arrival, Sun was also consistent in appearance. With the cold of winter faded, Guntu disappeared in mystery one morning when the kids who loved him very much were in school learning something which they had to carry forward with them in their own lives and coming generations.

RaZZevZ.com/ Memories

3 Idiots, 5.SomeOne & Intellectual Property Rights

2010-01-02T16:25:00.003+07:00

Those who have read Five Point Someone can co-relate how much of the book has been derived in the Movie. 3 Idiots delivered the same delight, which is being delivered by Five Point Someone to its readers. Obviously, the time constraint of a movie cannot go into that many details as a book can. Movie is not an exact replica of the book; it has got its own level of delight through the twists and modifications done in the story of the book. But, it is sad to know that it is being claimed that movie is not the book. In fact, the movie goes a little the time line where the story ended in the book, but it revisited a in-numerous instances of the book through the flashback.

One simple question to one and all, would ‘3 Idiots have been possible if there was no ‘Five Point Someone’. Answer is No. There is no denying to this fact. Also 3 Idiots was the most awaited movie of the year because folks wanted to revisit the delight of Five Point Someone.

To analyze the case, we have to understand the fundamental difference in these two stories.

3 Idiot is a Movie, FPS is a novel
3 Idiots is stretched a bit forward where FPS ended, i.e. post college life of the characters.
Narrator wanted to be a photographer, which was not in the case of FPS
Narrator didn’t had any affair with the leading lady, but the other guy had
One of 3 Idiots was topper, in FPS all of them were 5 pointers
The helpful professor was missing in 3 idiots
Final year student who committed suicide was a new character
Omi’s Role was a missing character in FPS
Fake Identity of Rancho, and himself being a renowned scientist in the climax was not a part of FPS.
Manifestation of Contemporary Issues in 3 Idiots, which were different in the book timeline(decade of 90s) .

There are few more unlisted differences. But, these branches of a story cannot exist without the stem, which in writers view is nothing but the FPS. These differences are evident only because of the big evident similarity.

IPR Perspective: FPS and 3I controversy is an example taken to understand the Laws, Rights and Ethics related with Intellectual Property. As per Wikipedia definition of copyright is: -

“Copyright is a form of intellectual property that gives the author of an original work exclusive right for a certain time period in relation to that work, including its publication, distribution and adaptation, after which time the work is said to enter the public domain. Copyright applies to any expressible form of an idea or information that is substantive and discrete and fixed in a medium.”

Based on above Chetan Bhagat has all sorts of Legal and Moral right to get his work acknowledged for the success of 3 Idiots. 3 Idiots has the idea snatched from FPS. Consider Omkara, the movie had courtesy to mention Shakespeare's Othello. However, the background was truly contemporary to Indian context. However, 3I used same background and story with the names of Characters changed.

Othello is now in public domain, and Shakespeare wouldn't have bothered about his acknowledgement. On the contrary, ‘Five Point Someone’ is still not in Public domain, copyright remains with author and he deserves both moral and legal right to get his name acknowledged.

It is sad that some people calling it publicity stunt for a person who is expressing views on the discomfort of seeing something publicly stolen from his wardrobe. Anyone would have reacted on such, and Chetan’s stand and approach in this matter is very sensible and appreciable.

It was sad to see, RK Hirani, who has induced ‘Jadu Ki Jhappi’, ‘GandhiGiri’ and in fact ‘All is Well’ to India's cultural thinking getting involve into this mess of name and blame. There is no surprise on Aamir speaking more than asked; it is his habit just continued from his rivalry episodes with Shahrukh.

RaZZevZ.com/ Current Affairs

What if God was one of us?

2009-10-19T11:08:00.007+07:00

For Rachelle

What if, God is someone who is 'One of Us'? He’s perhaps just someone anonymous, with a simple identity and a common face. He is neither a superhuman nor a magician, neither charming nor a dumb. He is neither sensitive nor emotionless. He is just someone. He is one of us. What if he has really got no difference, one can not recognize him as the apex. He has also got a vocation like us, he who also wakes up everyday and retires every night after a tiring day. He had been just one of us, meeting us daily or occasionally and moved along...

God, living with a common name and a common face, must have smiled when we have walked down the streets of a town and had an eye contact with him in a flash. He must have read the silly things we have done in life, something bad knowingly and unknowingly, also knew if any random act of kindness* done by us someday; and he must have blessed us with a smile as an acknowledgement to us for being ‘the entity of our own attributes’. Perhaps, he would have been a cab driver when we returned home after a busy day. Unbothered by his presence, spoke nothing with him and lost all alone in wandering thoughts, which included something(s) and someone(s) of an individualist’s life. After returning the change amount, he must have blessed, “Good Night”

He must have been a helping hand to a kid, who fell on street from bicycle or skates, or he just sold stuffs in a department store. He who is the father of the whole world must have got parents of his own.

He must have felt bad when someone close to him suffered the game of destiny. Then he thought of giving a fair chance with better times ahead. He must have wept on the issues of terrorism. God must have been influenced to panelized sinners. God once dressed like a disabled but with a divine smile on face, must have given a demoralized to stand tall and face the world with honor and pride**.

He never helped anyone moving mountains of difficulties in one’s life; rather he gave strength to climb over it. He must have been moving all along, must have served a refreshing cup of tea somewhere in between, when the pilgrim of climbing difficulties designed by destiny had been in progress. ***

God is someone one of us and always with us!

RaZZevZ.com/ memories

References in this Blog:-

Title: “What if God was one of us?” is a song 'One of Us' sung by Joan Osbrowne.

* Act of Random Kindness (ARK)–An unconditional help/kindness to someone unknown. Taken from movie “Evan Almighty”

** Inspired by Gandhiji’s Talisman, from NCERT textbooks.

*** “Lord Don’t move that mountain, give me enough strength to climb it” – a prayer song from movie The Pursuit of Happyness

Archive :- Topsia Fire

2009-10-14T15:58:00.013+07:00

Note: Blog initially written 35 months back in November 2006 on my yahoo360 profile। I was in Kolkata during my graduation days. This blog is about the lack of social responsibility in maintaining minimum compliance for small scale leather goods manufacturing units. This negligence resulted in loss of lives for some bonded labors who were locked in the factory.

Blog is old, but the issue is still burning

Myself Blogged in November 2006 : -
It won't smell only the tanned leather while driving along the E.M.Bypass; it would now smell the burnt sweat and flesh of those labors living in Topsia-Tiljala industrial belt. The Topsia incident was appalling, the extent of money-mind ness that labors are locked at their workplace. They are no more than bonded labors. According to the telegraph these labors arebought from rural areas of Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand. Most of them are child labors. A week before CITU(Trade Union of CPM) launched a trade union for IT sector, cause they believed they should protect rights of non-technical labors involved. That was a good thing to hear, but why they can't witness the non-conformity of simple compliances like potable water, cleanliness, fire safety and child labor. The topsia region is known for its illegal/unregistered business. Tenex Exports was one of them. Simple compliance conformity doesn't require ISO certification, but goodwill of an entrepreneur towards those hands which yield him dollars of profit.
Bags manufactured in that unit were exported to distant parts of world, as you can imagine the working condition as seen in picture(source: The Telegraph). I happened to visit a leather tannery in a Field Study visit during my first semester at NIFT. Ten of us vomited on the spot. There was only smell of fermented cow and buffalo skin, which entered our food pipe; reached stomach to take things out of it. By the way we reached fresh air after some time; but imagine some of our fellow citizens don't have that liberty to go away from their workplace for a while, and nine of them ended up dead, who leaved the fresh air of their village to earn somemoney for their family.
Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said: “Most of the buildings and the factories in that area are illegal… We have ordered an administrative inquiry.”
I hope the administrative enquiry would yield something good; at stake of loosing some foreign exchange, for prohibiting the proliferating of such illegal business. however, they don't yield any contribution to revenue of the state. Votes are perhaps something which government can loose, but a blogger like me will always appreciate such moves।

Rajeev Srivastava

Mr. Rajesh comments on the blog:-
The incidences like this one at Topsia Leather Export Body do keep happening in India .The answers we are looking for have to come from our own thoughts what i mean here is a question that whether we are in position to change the system or not ?
Bcz,I havent seen any step so far on behalf our governments that has stopped these kind of unfortunate accidents.But here I do see a light at the end of the tunnel and that light is people like you who stand up and raise there voice against the laid back attitude of the monitors of our system towards there responsibilities which they are supposed to discharge & these people and no one else have to stand responsible for these kind of things that happen around them and make us feel pity for those innocent souls.

My suggestions are .. do what you can do from your own level and keep your head raised with the feeling that I have done all that I can ..from my end and rest will be taken care of by the almighty which is another name of Laws of Nature and Wisdom which trancends the religon ,caste and creed ..

RaZZevZ.com/ Archive /

Initial Yards: Joy of Disbelief

2009-10-08T11:02:00.002+07:00

After so many cuts and injuries, once we thought riding cycle is impossible, and then we saw others riding it; re-collected all emotions and strengths, struggled with determination, learnt from mistakes, adopted a better approach, understood hidden tricks, and then one day the balance on two wheels was established and I shouted, “I am riding cycle on my own.”

The nervous joy of disbelief on attaining a cherished dream was evident in our initial yards of solely self balanced ride of cycle. Trembling feet, shaking hands, widen eyes, strained forehead temples, faster heart beats and some sensation in solar plexus; that unforgettable joy of childhood, got recovered from my memories in another similar instance below.

Earlier this year; relation between MITTRA (a Movex table) and OPS270MI (a Movex API) was a mystery to me. I struggled too much, but I was not able to have the right configuration to attain stock transactions update in MITTRA for the strings pushed to Movex through OPS270MI. I, My Team Lead and our Big Boss were concerned about it, to strike the right chord to make it happen. But, it was not happening at all. It was a challenge for us, as we knew it happens in other environments and we had to discover what had been the key to make that function happen in our environment. Just like the cycle; we had knowledge that two wheeled cycle doesn’t falls either way if the person knows how to ride it. All we didn’t knew how to balance the cycle.

Then I went through a phase of in-numerous cuts and injuries. Had a thorough browse of companion tool on every associated fields and functionalities in relation with OPS270MI. We had meetings to know about the alternates of OPS270MI. In the span of successive failures of every new strategy to solve it, I felt myself understanding the soul of the API and Movex. I started understanding, how it functions in Movex, which tables it influences, the internal programs which are called and how it is expected to behave once MITTRA is updated. All I slogged was how to update MITTRA.

Now we were all set to contact technical team for SOS. We got a belief that this bicycle had a problem, MITTRA will be updated only whatsoever puncture in it is spotted and corrected by technical consultant. Now my work was to make a detailed description of the problem area, highlight the issues, co-ordinate with technical consultant to make them understand the issue and solve the puncture. Our review meetings were centered on this issue all the time and now we were desperately seeking to outsource help in solving this.

One full day invested, in documenting the issues and concerns. Although all the time I discovered the soul of this functionality telling me, there is just something missing to make it happen. I was not happy to forward the issue to technical team. But, gradually the failures made me belief that it’s not profitable to run directionless, if there is really a technical fault in environment.

After enough of failed attempts of riding the bicycle; one evening I sat casually on the issue again. This time I used Tellus. I got some out of context details, followed by some new keywords which struck my mind. It was another dive in a new set of knowledge. I followed the flow of thoughts and information which were driving me. I said to myself, “I can see it!” Suddenly, DJ called me for a review meet. I dared and said, “As I can see it happening, give me 30 minutes. Might be we will have our issue solved”. With just introduced with new strangers named ‘Partner’ and ‘Internal Messages’ for ‘warehouse integration’; I discovered a whole set of new functionality which was vital to support the MITTRA update. Those were my initial yards of self balanced bicycle. I was riding in a belief of disbelief. As I can see it but feared I may fall again. But eventually few more steps of configurations, another test transaction, pressed the return key on keyboard and MITTRA was updated.

I ran to my Boss, after 10 to 15 minutes of his call, I felt some Archimedes in me, ‘EUREKA’ I said in my words, behaved fully childish, full of joy in that belief of disbelief. Something which haunted me for such a long time was cracked and I was proud of not getting any external help for that issue anymore.

RaZZevZ.com/Joy

Who am I?

2009-07-14T19:14:00.002+07:00

Rene Descartes, a French philosopher once said: 'I think, therefore I am'. I am thinking so my existence is established. The next question which bothers me is “I”. What is “I”? Whom we refer as “I” when we say “I am”? If I try to put my doubt simply the question is slightly different than “who am I?” Surprisingly a lot of work has been done to find out answer of the question “who am I”. The most difficult looking question has some ready made answer in various books and articles. Then there is a devil in me who asks a question, why are ...more

Children Of heaven

2009-07-05T18:26:00.012+07:00

Movie making has got difficult prepositions in Iran. There are lots of censorship, guidelines and restrictions in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Movie making almost died through the phase of historic Islamic revolution in Iran. Gradually, movie making in Iran is allowed but with innumerous restrictions and watch. The unfriendly restrictions for movie making have actually worked in favor of movie makers to attain heights of creativity on simpler subjects. This is evident through the fact that Iranian movies have highest number of awards won in International Film festivals all around the world.

Bashehaye Aseman (Children of Heaven) by Majid Majidi is one such landmark movie in Iranian Cinema. “Children of Heaven” was awarded Oscar for Best Foreign Language movie in 1998.

Ali and Zahra are brothers and sisters of a poor Iranian family. Their father works in a mosque by serving tea to people and their mother had some surgery which made her ill. Both Ali and Zahra help their mother in household activities and both goes to school. Movie begins with Ali getting shoes repaired for younger sister Zahra. But, eventually he lost those repaired shoes at a vegetable shop. It was taken by a sweeper unknowingly along with other garbage of the store. Ali did his best to find them, but failed. Zahra was disappointed to know her shoes are lost. Ali pleaded him not to tell this incident to their father. He was not afraid of being beaten up; rather he was concerned about the misery their family is already into because of their mother’s illness, unpaid house rent and low income of their father to support them.

Ali worked out a solution to this problem. Zahra had morning school and Ali had Afternoon school. Ali offered Zahra, to wear his sneakers for school and handover it to him soon after her school to Ali so that he can go school with those pair of sneakers. So the movie is all about the series of beautiful instances revolving around their relay race life of handing over sneakers in afternoon somewhere on the way, which was at the epicenter of their house and their respective schools. In the climax, there was a 4 Km race in town among students of Ali’s age group from various schools in the town. Ali wanted to participate so that he can win third prize of the race. Third prize was a pair of sneakers. Ali’s relay race life made him qualify for the race. Ali appeared in the race. He ran fast enough to secure a marginal lead. Gradually he slowed down to allow two others overtake him. But eventually, many other kids also came in close proximity. Now Ali had 4-5 kids with him in close, and end line was also approaching near. Ali pulled with all his energy and emerged winner of a fiercely competitive race. The win led to a disappointment to Ali, as he wanted to be third in the race not first. A fabulous prize for the winner was not attractive as those pair of sneakers. The movie ends with those available pair of sneakers badly torn and Ali and Zahra’s problem unresolved. Some versions of this movie have got an epilogue, mentioning Ali in his later life achieved heights of success as a sprinter.

Expressions of Ali and Zahra in the movie indeed come from heaven. Ali a 9 year intelligent boy has shy, thoughtful and fearsome expressions. Zahra is a cute 8 years old girl with ‘lovely frowns of anger’ and ‘cute smiles of happiness in disgust’.

‘Children of Heaven’ has got many beautiful instances. Like in presence of their father in room, they had a chat through writings on notebook, in which Ali convinced Zahra not to tell their parents about her lost shoes. And Ali gave Zahra his new pencil to make her pleased. Defining moments of the movie are the relay race of shoe handover, where Zahra runs after her school to meet Ali for shoe handover; so that Ali can reach his school in time with sneakers on. However, one reason or other never allowed Ali to reach school on time and he was always in trouble because of that. Once Zahra got sneakers fell in the fast moving drain stream, because shoes were one size big for her and usually came off her feet. Zahra ran along the stream to catch off the fallen shoe.

One her first day with Ali’s sneakers on Zahra felt very shy and awkward. Because those sneakers were big, dirty as well as not at all girly. But, in a sports class she felt proud of wearing sneakers, as it was then advised by sports teacher that sneakers are good for jumping. A beautiful smile of Zahra described above description. That’s what a thoughtful direction compliments the delight of story telling. Ali and Zahra had an emotional divinity with pleasure and delight in one scene when they together washed those pair of sneakers.

In the course of movie, Zahra discovered her lost shoe was used by another girl Zoya in her school. She followed Zoya one day to find where she lived. Another day Ali and Zahra went together to her place. They discovered Zoya’s life was more in misery than theirs. They returned without asking for her shoes. That is why Ali and Zahra are children of heaven. Zoya, without knowing that she had Zahra’s shoes, got a good friendship with Zahra. She was also an honest girl, as she returned an expensive pen of Zahra to her, which she saw fallen once Zahra as usual was rushing to Ali after school. Ali got that expensive pen as a prize from his teacher for doing well in studies, which he presented to Zahra to let her pleased and not let their parents know about the lost shoes.

RaZZevZ.com/ Movies

“Children of heaven” is a treat to watch. Movie is available on Google videos at below links.

Part 1: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2085360636693346701

Part 2: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1568263933309969077

official website of movie: http://www.cinemajidi.com/children/

RaZZevZ.com is now 3

2009-06-30T21:11:00.008+07:00

" Either write Something worth reading or do something worth writing"
Benjamin Franklin

3 years before; RaZZevZ.com appeared on net. The span of three years have produced 34 blog posts. We are committed to enrich our readers' blog experience in coming years also.

RaZZevZ.com has produced many blogs which we have felt on diversified subjects spanning from Cricket, Hockey, Movies, TV Shows, Blast experience, pilgrims, urban transport, flight experience, love, unconditional love, travelogues, rain, clouds, nature, electronic media, Hindu mythology, music, poems, national integrity, book reviews, current affairs, etc. We will continue to produce readers' delight forever years and years onwards.

RaZZevZ.com is powered by the "feel phenomenon" to write on the subjects over which writer gets a strong insight or feel. Based on the day to day experiences, our blogs appeared with emotional touch after a span of 3 years are now diversified under different areas. And we are proud of that, there is no any such constraint for that; we can feel anything under the Sun and beyond. Summing it up all RaZZevZ.com represents an autonomous autobiography which touches some portion of every others' life.

Happy Birthday RaZZevZ.com

RaZZevZ.com / Editorial

Jupiter: Symbol of Unconditional Love

2009-06-27T23:46:00.005+07:00

The untold fable of Jupiter

Perhaps Venus is a symbol of Love, no deny to it; but Jupiter is someone who made the existence of Solar system possible. It’s all due to his unconditional love towards earth. Love of Jupiter is all above the category of spouse, friend or a sibling. It is just a phenomenon of true love and inspiration to mankind. This true unconditional love made him to loose what it could have been just another mighty star of the galaxy, but he choose to be regarded only as someone anonymous.

Jupiter had got enough hydrogen to start as a sun, when our solar system was developing. Might be Jupiter (humanized) loved Earth's beauty and realized being a mass of heat will destroy the anticipated livelihood of the cutest planet. The green and blues of earth’s surface with a tint dusky browns, reflected by the shine of Sun; must have made him crazy. He went ahead all to see how life and eventually mankind was going to prosper on this planet. Contradictory, we took more romantic Venus as a symbol of love. The dignity of Jupiter is unbothered to it; because Jupiter carries vision and wisdom. Jupiter must have seen oceans of love and beauty of emotions will be prospering in the planet of life. He must have felt emotional when he was all set to be promoted as a star. Possibly, his emotions made mankind.

He defined his objective to God that to divert all asteroids and comets approaching earth. The belt of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter would have been bombarded on us if Jupiter wasn't there. The 'Frisbee Phenomenon of Jupiter' by attracting and throwing asteroids away protects us. For Earth (humanized), might be Jupiter is just a dignified stranger or a failed star; but indeed Jupiter is a symbol of UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.

Jupiter is an inspiration to live and love without conditions! Jupiter followed his duties from ages and will continue for another age of ages, unconditionally for his beloved. When you feel intensely disappointed with emotions, just remember Jupiter.

RaZZevZ.com / Unconditional Love

Lilies of the Lake

2009-06-25T23:24:00.005+07:00

The distant lake appeared like a landmass out of the density of the water which suddenly grew heavier in overcast. The continuous movement of high speed breeze at the wake up of a forecasted typhoon made an array of waves over the water surface. The continuous arrays created a dynamic equilibrium, waves stood still and the reflected saffron grey shade of the clouds in evening made the lake looked like a landmass of sand. This was a mirage or illusion indeed; reminded by the water lilies of the lake. A contradiction that sand and greenery can never be co-existent. One of them is an illusion which is just enumerated by a series of events. They are half realities and half illusions; exactly like the mind which was surrounded by mixed emotions, conflicts from many directions both from inside and outside. Through the maze of ambitions, duties, beauties, likes, dislikes, expectations, assumptions and a quest of happiness- it was all like a water lily in mirage sand.

Clouds which sat over a distant mountain appeared like a heap of cotton balls dumped over it, falling down to release and blanket it all over, giving all the moisture it has. The mountain clouds appear whispered through the winds which blew inside the ears. The pioneer winds in the wake of today’s forecasted typhoon have bought them till the beautiful mountains, where they got melted by its beauty to blanket it all with the moisture they have. Like a true lover, giving it all unconditionally. Like the Jupiter who admired Dharti’s view so much, it refused God for being another Sun, rather to keep gaze on it and protect it from celestial attacks. The clouds fell in a similar unconditional love with those mountain trees and rocks, and went ahead to give it all they had. Their affection was just unbothered by the inexpressive rocks over the mountain. The clouds however loved the smile of the trees who danced in tune of divine rhythm sung by them and accompanying winds.

The nearby saffron clouds grew darker. It appeared as if sky was falling in that distant stretch of the lake. The wind whispered a bit louder this time of approaching storm. The storm of conflicts confined inside a pretended smiling calm castle also grew louder. The gaze of lilies, water-sand, waves, clouds and the falling sky and rocks of mountains resembled different characters of mixed emotions.

The inexpressive rocks and the melted clouds in love, euphoric trees and the lilies caught in the mirage of either sand or water; collectively enumerated different aspects of human nature.

Living with conflicts, seeing mirages, creating illusions, living expressively, loving inexpressiveness, speculations, disappointments, surprises, ambitions, achievements, failures, tears of happiness and the laugh of a sad; it was all communicated through the lilies of lake.

RaZZevZ.com/ Internal Conflicts

Philippine Days

2009-06-15T14:26:00.009+07:00

Well I’m nobody against Ian Wright (Lonely planet) or Diego Buñuel (Don’t tell my mother …), but indeed my Manila days are filled with beautiful travelogue experiences. And I do feel myself as someone like them. This blog is all about the experiences I’m getting in Philippine backed by the memories of me in India.

Philippine is a beautiful country. There is a beautiful lake stretched throughout the horizon with a series of hills behind it; can be seen from my apartment. I’m staying in Alalabang (in Muntinlupa City), which is in another district but considered as a sub-urban part of Manila. Similar to the relation we have between Thane and Mumbai. But this place resembles me of Kolkata more. There are many similarities. Especially the flyover in front of Star Mall reminds me of Gariahat of Kolkata. And some replication of Eastern Meridian ByPass in Kolkata can be observed in the greenery surrounded roads of these towns.

JeepNi : First thing which I noticed here was Jeepni. It is an awesome vehicle. It resembles a miniature truck from its front view. It has got similar decorations as we observe also done for trucks in India and Pakistan. It’s a stretched Limonouisse made out of a something called Jeep in India. I recall the overcrowded 20 kms jeep journey from Deoria town to my village near Pagra bazaar. The Mahua Patan Bridge on Choti Gandak River and innumerous babul trees on the way. The river doesn’t have that much water in summers before autumn and the island of sands can be seen. But when monsoon cloud arrives the water level goes high, as if its now on a cloud 9. The coins we use to throw it in river, is a part of our culture to offer our worships to rivers by throwing coins into it.

The Jeepni of Phillipines carries people in the same way but its more stretched and lesser crowded. Living in Indian metroes viz Kolkata and Mumbai since past 6 years almost made me forgot what a Jeep used to be. It almost got extinct in my mind. Jeepni made me recall the fainted memories of me going village in childhood. Jeep is still used for transportation between towns in UP and Bihar.

Indeed, For me JeepNi is a heritage of this town, similar to Trams in Kolkata.

Trike : Trike (nomenclature done by me) or Tri-cycle is a Jay-Veeru’s motorbike from Sholey with a shelter overhead. This is also another mean of public transportation as a substitute to the auto-rickshaw we have in Mumbai. Trike can carry upto 5 people including the driver. Trike is mostly used in India by handicaps, but here trike with shelter overhead is used for moving folks whereas trikes without shelter is used for moving garbage. Trike reminds me of 100 number (Sau number in Hindi – Nomenclature done by one of my family friend) in Shahjahanpur. Shahjahanpur is a small town in UP, where mopeds are attached with indigenously manufactured sitting arrangements. They move folks for smaller distances mostly between villages. These rural Nano’es are in practice since long back. But why they were named as 100 or Sau number? Because 100 is a police control room number which has to be contacted first whenever there accident happens. Sau Number is very accident prone especially in nights when the only headlight of the moped may mislead anyone approaching it, not to consider the side extensions of it in darkness. We can see in the image a circle with flouroscent paint over the screen of the attached cabinet of the trike. It is glowing because of the camera flash. Hence, a Philipino trike is not a "Sau Number"; since approaching vehicles in dark can see two lights representing the width of the vehicle.

Be it Trike or Jeepni, they are beautifully decorated by Philippines’ people and it shoulders a major chunk of transportation over here. They are different but remind India to me. The next section not only reminds me of India, but has aroused a curiosity in everyone about India. It’s a sarcastic honour to be from India, since Slumdog millionaire has got all which portrays bad about India. It is whatsoever a reality indeed, besides a glorified history and rich culture of a nation, Slumdog displayed how much we are inhuman or uncivilized also as a nation. Self consciously, I face that ugly side of us. But that movie is an inspiration to people out here.

Jay Ho! : Philippine is driven crazy by Slum-dog Millionaire. ‘Jay Ho’ promotional featuring Pussy Cat is on the charts of every FM channel. One of my fellow colleagues here told me that he got inspiration from Slumdog millionaire movie and he had watched it thrice. Well, if something inspires; you are bound to watch it over and over again. It enables one to have all of its details known by heart. I too had that level of mania, for movie Iqbal. That movie is completely in my mind scene by scene. Still, I do feel the concluding scene of the movie when Shreyas Telpade (deaf and dumb in movie) was running towards the pitch to bowl first delivery of his ODI career. That scene makes me feel as if Iqbal is someone known and very close to me, and his success is mine. Similarly Jamal Malik is a character which has penetrated the psyche of folks worldwide.

I just love to see the glaze in people’s eyes when they come to know the meaning of Jay Ho as to ‘be victorious’. Their inspiration level gets a Gatorade when they came to know the meaning. Jay Ho is now used as a mode of greeting by me to the people I know over here. ‘Jay Ho’ has got a connecting phenomenon for me and the folks over here. One of my friend asked me about some doubts about the movie which they didn’t understood. Like who was that movie star for whom Jamal Malik jumped into the dumps of shit, but didn’t let his photograph got dirty. Or why there was a kid painted in Blue stood in streets when there was a severe massacre between folks and what was represented through him.

RaZZevZ.com/Travelogue

Hey! Look us Fly

2009-06-15T13:57:00.003+07:00

After a long but somewhat entertained wait in the lounge room; even I once felt sleepy; I came to know about the changed terminal for my first ever flight of life. It happened finally with me. And I was now directed towards the way to board my flight. I walked down the gallery, the red carpet indeed. The gallery was a bit long and gradually I found myself inside the flight. I never came to know that it was an artificial gallery, movable and its opening was directed right into the door of flight. I expected that I will be climbing stairs to board the flight (this I did later in Hong Kong for the second flight). Finally I was in and occupied 52A seat of mine. After boarding the flight I had a very long conversation with mom. She was happy as well as sad about me going that away from her. It was an emotional moment over phone. But ultimately I had to switch it off. The flight was ready to take off now. Signals from electronic devices disrupt communication of flight with air traffic.

Cathay flight had a small screen in front of every seat. So I was updated about important statistics viz. distance between source and destination; local times of source and destination, a GPS map and cockpit view of the flight. The cockpit view was of my immense interest. I remembered “A pilgrim through the roads of Mumbai” when I had a view of the flight taking on and off the runway, from a very nearby distance on Andheri Kurla road. The cockpit view enabled me to have the best view of the linear perspective of my life. I felt “that’s a Bournville moment of my life”. Indeed it was! The aero-dynamic giant started running the runway. Through the side window I assessed the acceleration of the machine. Then a gentle push and we were in sky. The giant wings of plane, seen through the window were stretched wide open in sky. Throughout the journey they made adjustments through different panes in it to enable aero dynamicity of the fleet. The wheel shown through the cockpit view started returning back inside the flight. That was a moment before dawn in Mumbai. Around 4:55 AM we took of. Hence, it was still darkness around.

Through the window I saw myself moving away from Mumbai. It was an awesome view. It was a golden view. All the yellow street lights lit together the roads of Mumbai resembled golden laces spread and sparkled all over. Straight and curved roads with so many lights from slums and posh buildings gradually meshed together in a distant view of my Mumbai. The flight reached the clouds. Oh, some tiny rain clouds are next to me. I sensed the moisture in them. However they weren’t of that intensity which can damp Mumbai. But I was with them. Holy Smoke! And gradually I got above the clouds too. Mumbai was now faded. Now I am away from it probably for next three months. Perhaps, we crossed the Thane creek, followed by Western Ghats. Then I saw the redness in the sky. I can see SuryaDev (The Sun) behind the blanket of clouds through the cockpit view channel in the screen. There were several layers of cloud we surpassed. White clouds, grey clouds, we were all above them. It was a moment when the man-made world was in full rhythm with nature. Not above it at all. Because nature is immense and man made materialism is nothing but a part of it.

At some point of time I recalled one of my recurring dream. In those dreams I’m equipped with superpowers/ abilities. I can run very fast, I jump to run faster and observe I can float in my movements. From the terrace of my Gorakhpur house I see myself jumping towards zenith, with first jump through Sri Ram Vanvasi Hostel building. Initially I gets amateur approach but gradually I excels and see myself crossing Atlantic ocean. Well, that recurrent dream is similar as well as different with my flight experience. Well, this dream is just one of the many reasons because of which I strongly associate myself very much with Superheroes.

Gradually, the sun got strong and it was advised by the on board staff (Air hostess-of course!) to close the window cover. I enjoyed some recorded videos and some radio channels. Omelet served in breakfast was nice. I slept and reached Bangkok after 3000 kms of air journey through maximum height attained above sea level around 9000 kms. We almost touched the stratosphere all above the troposphere. It crossed Maharashtra, Deccan, MP, Orissa and Bay of Bengal. It was all displayed through the GPS map in the front screen.

Bangkok was the only halt for the flight before Hong Kong. It was day time and the aerial view of Bangkok was fabulous. Bangkok had too much of water bodies, I wonder it was recent rains or it has that much of water anytime. I saw straight and parallel roads meshed throughout and many building stood in discipline with majority of them in white with orange tops. We passed some golf course. Golf always fascinates me, and top view of them made me curious for not missing any inch of it. Gradually the height reduced between us and the earth and we landed on Bangkok airport.

It was a halt for 45 minutes, some cleaning, some alighted, some boarded, change in on board staff and we finally resumed voyage towards Hong Kong. Ariel view of Mumbai was glazing, Bangkok’s view was fabulous but view of Hong Kong was MIND BLOWING. It appeared every building in HK was a sky scrapper only. They all stood in as in uniform and in discipline. As if they were all monitoring Macau. Somewhere in between there was a building very distinct, certainly the tallest building in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is surrounded by water from all sides, with coastal mountains adding value to the Aerial view of the “Asia’s World city”* There were numerous boats and water sports can be seen from the sky of Hong Kong. The airport, which is very vast in area itself, is on an island. It is quite away from the main land which is called as Macau. Finally my first ever flight journey came to a memorable end in some 6 hours.

The Hong Kong airport is huge, and it has world class infrastructures. There was an escalator like arrangement to enable people to speed up their walk. I call it a flat escalator, which enabled folks to walk down the corridors with faster speeds. I had to board another flight for Manila. It was on some far off terminal of HK airport. I was surprised to know that there was also an internal train in airport. I had to take one such train (it was like a metro train) to reach security point for my flight’s terminal. And then a Bus with no seats took us all to board the Manila flight.

RaZZevZ.com/ Travelogue

* Asia’s World City: A promotion of Hong Kong by Cathay Pacific. Cathay Pacific is headquartered in Hong Kong.
Blog title is taken from movie "The Kid"

Kotar Aur Kutir

2009-03-28T17:22:00.005+07:00

Disclaimer: Recreation of original work by SiyaRam Sharan Gupta; famous hindi poet and writer

Kotar Aur Kutir is all about being true and dignified within oneself for his values and responsibilities. Kotar ( a hollow space in tree) and Kutir ( a Hut) are different phases of the same moral of being true to oneself for values and responsibility.

Into the Kotar of a banyan tree, lived a chatak bird family of father and son. They starved in the month of Jeth ( month for extreme summer in Indian Calendar, phase of May-June summer time in Indian Subcontinent). Chatak is a hypothetical sacred mythological breed of bird, which doesn't drinks water in Indian Summers as he awaits rain droplets of 'Swati Nakshatra' ( i.e. moment when first droplets of rain falls) to satisfy his thirst. Chatak community doesn't compromise to drink stale water of ponds in their region. According to legends and believes; this bird community has responsibility of bringing rain down to the region where they lives. As they starve out in extreme Indian heat and continuously pray God for rain to appear.

The younger generation of Chatak community was argumentative. Driven by logic, the chatak son broke out his silence and questioned why they were supposed to starve, when there was sufficient water available in the region. He questioned what would be the outcome of that, anyways rain will appear sometime whenever it will be the required climate change. Chatak son came with all possible logics to convince his father that they can drink the available water after doing required search for it and not starve in the unbearable summer by just sitting idle and praying rain god. As he noticed pattern of animals and birds going in one particular direction and return. But Chatak father remained uneffected and decided to starve till the rain will appear. As he stucked to his values, responsibility and believes and tried to convince his son for the same with his set of believes, customs and responsibilities.

Both sticked to their believes and logic. Ultimately, chatak son left out alone to drink available water. There was no water nearby, he searched for hours and found one pond, one dirty pond. It had very little water left, which was supporting life of animals in the jungle. Gradually he started thinking like his father, that after searching water a sight of dirty pond can give so much relief
how much would be that immense happiness if he will satisfy his thirst with swati nakshatra water droplets. Also a holy skeptism appeared, if he will violate his values ; perhaps rain may not appear this season. If he will not able to manage his starvation, it may lead to starvation of entire ecosystem in his region. Because of him, everyone may starve to death. Hence he returned his kotar still thirsty and joined his father. They continued the venture of bringing rain down to the region.

Similarly, in Kutir ( a Hut ) a labour also didn't sacrificed his values, in a time of immense poverty (era of before independence). The labour , starving with hungry stomach, got no work in morning to feed his family. But chased a motor car madly, so that he can give a wallet full of money to the Mahto (Seth). He saw wallet falling from the car. He didn't even took a penny from it. In the end, it was all his duty n values, for that noble drive
The labour narrated this incident to his father, explaining why they have a bad starving evening again that day. But, his father was more than happy despite having no food, no work, and all day wasted in returning money to seth, for which he commensed long way to return that amount. His father was happy despite all hurdles and temptations his son remained true, honest and sticked to their values.

RaZZevZ. com/stories

STORIES, CLIMAX & DELIGHT

2009-02-26T11:29:00.005+07:00

A kid all alone on terrace, hiding from his mother dialed his father from his toy mobile. He started complaining about the hardship of mother, as she didn't allowed him to play outside. Irrespective of anyone listening the conversation, kid boy instructed father to scold mother so that she let him play. After the phone call, he gave a hopeful glance to his toy phone. He had full trust in his belief that message is conveyed to father. Kid returned to his room, sat in a corner. Pretending that he is obeying mother's instruction; but he was waiting for her to receive a call from father. Meanwhile, mother got softened and allowed him to play in some time after doing some study. The kid got delighted. His innocent belief worked, and still he believed that it was complaint to father, few moment ago through his toy phone has made it happen. He just asked mother only to confirm his belief whether she received any phone call from father.

Above story is a description of a 30 seconds commercial of a mobile network. The commercial message has a marketing theme of belief; as it made themselves a leading mobile company of nation. Belief is the first step in making targets possible. And an innocent belief is even more stronger, since one is very much unaware of constraints and hence any effort made carries full dedication and perfection. After all it is a well known fact that, "If you really want something then the entire universe will conspire in your favor so that you can achieve it." This commercial has characters, moments and a climax with some deep moral; hence it is regarded as a story not a moment.

Another beautiful story. A lady bought a pack of cookies while waiting for her flight. A man sitting next to her started taking cookies from the pack. Lady initially didn't mind, later got annoyed and finally irritated. her fury was doubled by the smile she saw on his face. However she didn't created a scene but a symbolic rude behavior was quite obvious in that situation. Things got worsened when there was only one cookie left and he divided into into two parts and ate one. This was the limit, lady rushed away and eventually took her flight. In flight she realized the pack of cookies which she ate was not her's. In fact, Cookies which she bought was still lying in her bag. This means that person didn't took cookies from her, in fact cookies he had with him was shared by him with a generous smile. Even, He shared the last one he had to offer. She got ashamed of her overall behavior but certain things in life are irreversible.

Above story portrays a strong message through its climax that certain acts in life are irreversible like behavior, words and time. So, we got to be cautious in handling these.
A climax is something which complements a beautiful story and hence re-enforces delight in readers' mind. Like stories above. the reader feels a sense of achievement when something delightful or strong moral lesson is derived in the course of events in the story. Similarly, the climax of movie Sixth Sense was astonishing; a psychiatrist who was curing a kid boy, who had an extra perception naturally developed, by virtue of which he was able to see wandering souls. The psychiatrist made kid boy come out of his fear and helped him to initiate conversation with souls. Subsequently, the kid was able to establish conversation with wandering souls and helped them to get their unfulfilled wishes at the time of death, fulfilled. the trauma of kid boy vanished and he was very much cured or accustomed with his extra sensory perceptions. One day the kid boy asked psychiatrist to give a 'false' promise of meeting again as they were not going to meet onwards. Probably, the kid must have realized by then that the psychiatrist himself was a wandering soul. The psychiatrist himself was unaware about himself, which he realized in the end. Objective of the existence of psychiatrist's wandering soul was over, hence he got vanished into eternal ether.

RaZZevZ.com/stories

Internal Conflicts

2009-02-05T11:35:00.001+07:00

In that laugh, there was some sadness behind. Smile was lost and the laugh was hiding the incapable to go unnoticed feeling of some sadness. Internal conflicts; between good and bad, winning and loosing, complete and incomplete, rigidity and elasticity; all appeared together to make a paradox of laugh in a sad.

A sense of something missing, prevailed all over. Things in surrounding were fine but not perfect. Like someone calling from inside to mend, but not able to specify what. Internal Energy of emotions resulted in an emotional trauma. A handicap of indifference to life. Simultaneously, laugh also vanished. thinking forces striking from all directions, no protocol, only a directionless movement of thoughts, came and went continuously. Supernova of thoughts, emotions and memories made the brain go on for hibernation ( handicap of indifference ).

There appeared no end to internal conflicts. Like the parable of 'a frog' in boiling water; in due course of time, adoption to the change was scheduled to happen. Until the temperature reached the boiling point which indeed unbearable for the frog made him to die. (frog was in pot since the temperature of water was normal, the pot got on an oven, frog in pot adapted to change unless it went unbearable). If change is spontaneous it can not go unnoticed. But, if there are slow gradual change, it will pass unnoticed before it goes critical.

Gradually, the supernova of thoughts was commanding brain to go on indifferent to emotions mode. If that would have been happened, apparent internal conflicts could have gone underground. That is to a deeper level. Hibernated brain would have thought isn't there nothing happened at all?

Thankfully, an unconscious portion of brain got conscious...

(to be continued)

RaZZevZ.com/ internal conflicts

Non Stop Nonsense News

2009-01-17T18:38:00.002+07:00

Where our Hindi TV News media community is headed for?

They are filled with all sort of craps, contents of no relevant importance and indeed they are TRP driven. They set their own academies to announce them number one award winner of favorite news channels, they repeat same content again and again; and these days every news is a breaking news. Seven days a week, day and night ( raat din, hafte ke saat din), they are promoting superstition, bollywood rivalries, Reality show updates, page 3 news, etc. In all these, the actual news is forbidden. We came to know everyday that sensex dropped down or climbed up; but an average hindi news audiance would not be graduated to the understanding of its driving forces. News about politics is an endangered news type. It is on a merge of extinction. One can never ever get any update on how government is functioning, what policies are being made and why? what are whereabouts of our planning commission, FICCI and CII actions, where we are being headed for as a nation and many such unanswered questions, which we even don't realize to seek from them. Obviously some Indian English News channels are at par in those expectations; but what about the big niche which rely on this media only.

Electronic News media has evolved beyond the boundries of mass communication, in fact now it is a source of mass education, cause it carries voice as well as images. If the source of information itself is money driven; it would not help to serve society any better. As a standard customer (viewer); quality is expected from the system. We might have other sources to obtain to fetch knowledge about bollywood rivalries, upcoming movies, insignificant local news which, no way carry any significant importance over national broadcast, astrology, reality TV, income of cricketers and there latest endorsements. Political News appears in random on some election days in states. And important national news in brief are locked in InfoBars moving in bottom.

Electronic media has evolved as an opinion leader advertising source. E.g recently two of bollywood celebrities gained maximum revenue due to extended coverage of their rivalries. Few others popped in from here and there, to take advantage of situation. Few months back there an advertisement itself was advertised through a 30 min special news report. 30 minutes special news features on leading news channels can be summarized into few lines of national dailies. they are filled with 15 minutes of commercials in 3 phases with news in 3-4 minutes dossiers in between. As an audience we must understand that our time is money which need not wasted someone's love affair and two people fighting out their egos.

1997 was the year when Prasar Bharti was introduced to make news media unbiased. 2002 onwards private news channel business witnessed tremendous growth curve. Initially DoorDarshan had maximum of 2 hrs of news broadcast distributed evenly in two English, Hindi and respective regional languages. It used to be diversified and comprehensive. Zee India TV, which is now Zee News is first hindi news channel to the writers knowledge; which initially had repeat telecasts of their 30 minutes standard comprehensive news bulletins. Prosper of private news media was mainly due to the philosophy of Prasar Bharti to avail unbiased News content to the society and national. This seems overruled in a rat run of giving fastest news and drive the TRP flow. Presently DoorDarshan being an autonomous but governement agency is confronting with the compliance of Prasar Bharti. One or other Hindi News ( perhaps English also) are speaking someone else motives who are driving them.

October 2007, Prasar Bharti initiated an unnoticed campaign regarding social responsibility of NEWS media over TV. Nothing happened, the broadcasters halfheartedly confessed and resumed their routine pattern. Since then, we have seen aliens walking on moon, September Tandav Machine D'day( related to Large Hydron Collider), 8 aug 2008 tragedies, astro alerts, 12 dec 2012 doomsday forecast, etc.

Hasn't it been great if somehow current international recession had been forecasted through their symptoms which must have appeared before.

It is our appeal to those who are governing and monitoring NEWS MEDIA in India, to take necessary measures to provide us correct mass education. Current and coming generations otherwise will have lesser logical approach towards the society. Please understand MEDIA is now means of mass education also, and we need better education.

(Video Source: writer's fun activity in a gathering which people enjoyed because of all the crap filled in it. Target audience of Hindi news media is unfortunately attracted towards such flashy masala, which is a threat for the society's evolution. Anything can not be a news unless it has got some strong social message in it.)

RaZZevZ.com/National

Technorati Tags: Hindi news,non stop,nonsense,news,prasar bharti

THE KID

2009-01-15T13:12:00.001+07:00

Childhood days were gr8 days, We miss it a lot; i mean we could do anything and everything; it was fun; n den college that was also fun

You must watch "the kid" whenever U get time; it has similar plot; which touches feeling of a grown up; and makes his kid come out; his kid means himself as kid; u must have heard about the techniques of healing past memories.

An image consultant ( Bruce Willis) is bit arrogant; but very successful in life; detached with his family-no connection; lives alone; very busy, his own office, changes people's life by consulting them; by advising them do's and don't; clients includes ; corporate, politicians, etc

One day, series of hallucinations appear; red color glider follows him; one night a kid entered his apartment; playing with red color glider toy; kid runs away, he follows him to some airport runway. Second time he encounters kid, he discovers he is himself; the 8 yr kid was himself, both talk to each other, both convinced that they are themselves, kid lives with him. Kid gets disappointed with his 40 yr counterpart. As a kid he had a dream to be a pilot, to have a dog with him. 40 yr counterpart was vertically opposite to his 8 yr reflection

Other details of the character; his secretary, his relation ship with his father, his girlfriend ( she gets a sarcastically bad treatment); his professional approach,

Kid enquires him, how the life between 8 to 40 has taken place; they start understanding each other

by the way kid was seen to everyone, how cum; probably entire hallucination; but that hallucination was for a cause; what cause? whereabouts of hallucination was just a part of story, to enumerate the moral of story and create supporting plots

" holy smoke " was a recurrent word; by kid, one day it appeared

And now 40yr man went into 8 yr age in past (1969); both together. When he was 8 yrs, on his birthday he was beaten up by some bad boys of school. They went there before recess time, when that incident happened. Eventually kid was taught boxing by one of his 40 yrs client in 2006.

They healed that moment

As remembered by the 40 yr counterpart, that he was beaten while saving a three legged dog TRIPOD, By those bad kids. He advised 8 yr counterpart to use his boxing skills well to combat. This time he was not beaten up, and he defeated them. However got injured, Her ill mother visited school after incident to meet principal as she was summoned. His father scolded him ( 8 yr boy obviously as 40 yr dude was just out of scene watching )

Kid discovered mother will die soon, Father scolded him as responsible for that, 40 yr counterpart told him that his mother will live for another year. Initially, the 40 yr man had a very bad impression of his father, this time when holy smoke took him to 1969, he understood father's perspective that he has to do upbringing of a boy without his mother, a family in fact

Then, holy smoke 2006 again a dog comes to him; as if the dog recognized both of 'em. Another elderly man , owner of dog calls him back. They resume their dining/conversation- both discovers that man was himself, from future. They were dining in the same restaurant which was near runway, now he had a dog and he possessed a private aircraft.

kid and man got happier

As they discovered 40 yrs and onwards they have got their cherished dreams resumed and definately achieved

" hey look us fly!"

when elderly man departed, both shouted numerous times

KID DISAPPEARD and 40 yr counterpart had a new beginning as they saw the glimpse of future.

The Kid is an inspiration to watch and realize our forgotten dreams.

RaZZevZ.com/Movies

(Disclaimer: Blog is an abridged version of GTalk between me and my friend)

Ranji Semifinal: Mumbai Vs Saurashtra

2009-01-03T23:14:00.003+07:00

Semi Final of current Ranji Season commences Sunday onwards between Saurashtra-Mumbai and UP- TamilNadu. Rising stars of domestic structure will be seen playing with the likes of those who have represented India at International level.

Any Domestic encounter which features Sachin gains a ‘special match’ status for organizers. And this time it is more special as this time the likes of Pujara is against him. Since the inception of this season of domestic season, Chiteshwar had been the consistent performer and had been in discussion throughout. This is going to be an eventful cricket week with domestic Ranji semi-fianls and Australia’s attempt to win something more than a test match. Can Australia manage to withstand South Africa, who are in incredible form.

Rise of Domestic Cricket; Its not just Chiteshwar Pujara or Saurashtra, which have risen to a certain level. In fact, it is the entire domestic structure of cricket in India which has got uplift. Since IPL; domestic cricketers are getting their due recognition and media coverage. Performers like Pujara do deserve such coverage, and also the responsibility to give their best on their debut for India. It could be a tough time for Saurashtra batting line up, to handle the ZAK attack. According to Gautam Gambhir’s interview in TOI, Zaheer is the best bowler in world today. Can Chiteshwar Pujara and excellent team work of Saurashtra portrayed so far in Ranji season will withstand against Sachin, Zaheer and Mumbai’s fair amount of international level experience ( Wasim Jaffer, Rohit Sharma). Can they repeat their tremendous character? Pujara will have a chance for New Zealand ticket. Definitely this semi final will be remembered as a memorable Ranji match. In fact more memorable than recent 2006-07 season Ranji Final between Mumbai and Bengal.

Definitely, this is going to be a treat to watch.

RaZZevZ.com/cricket

The Tune which rewinds

2008-11-08T10:57:00.003+07:00

the tune which rewinds;
which rewinds through and through the mind;
the mind is like an ocean;
filled with immense matter, visible as well as hidden,
the matter neither true black nor full white; an element of grey makes it all,
sometime less somewhere more;
along the mind's shore,
there is a perspective- uninclined, beyondimensions,the aether;
the tune of that perspective- independent of good and bad,
the tune somewhere hidden in mind,
somewhere in a deep trench of ocean mind.
the tune which rewinds.
RaZZevZ.com

Mile Sur Mera Tumhara

2008-08-15T21:00:00.002+07:00

Culture is governed by characteristics of water. Very true as the titled song which I personally deem as an Anthem, representing India through different cultures, landscapes , way of living and languages.

Be it any region we live or any language we speak, we are a nation. India is a unique land mass with all sorts of geographical landscapes and numerous languages and races. Un-noticed but very true, Indian culture is evolving as a unique fusion of its diversity evaporated and then condensed together. Like WATER; be it from sea, river, pond or one hard sweat; it has no discrimination during cloud formation and it equally returned back in form of precipitation. This is very brighter prospect, there are many threads like cricket, bollywood, bhangra, Dosa and many other phenomenons which don’t have any regional boundry and are stitching us in one loop.

But, also there are many other factors in the present day context, through which we are getting divided in terms of the religion one follows, the language one speaks and the region one lives. Discrimination of many sorts is prevailed all around us. Linguist discrimination; it is now evolving to a greater extent. It had prevailed earlier also in pre as well as post independence era. Because of Linguistism, Hindi has not been recognized as national language yet. Delhi politics is over shadowed with Secularism and communalism issues, but coalition fronts are involved in their linguistic/ regional issues. This is mainly due to regional parties having decisive roles in Parliamentary activities.

Today we are united with patriotic feelings on 61^st birthday of the independent nation, but we are equally divided too. We have to free ourselves from such anti-social barriers. We got to develop one nation one society feel, not many regions with that many societies to favor. As a citizen of the nation, we must seek equal opportunities for every one as a fundamental right.

Lata Mangeshkar’s singing for a Bhojpuri movie is an ideal example of combating regionalism / linguist forces beyond politics. As a responsible citizen I personally feel proud of such examples.

RaZZevZ.com

Hockey India

2008-07-19T10:34:00.003+07:00

Indeed this is a great news, which will be marked as a landmark day in revival of Indian Hockey. As the Interntional Hockey federation has allowed India to host 2010 Hockey world cup and Hockey India is formed/renamed for governing and controlling the sport in India. This week would be remembered as an eventful week for the National sport. Junior team also won the asia cup in Hyderabad.

Despite being ruled out of Olympics and revealing of corruption cases in former IHF,and recent on field battle of Junior Indo-Pak players; "Hockey India" could be deemed as a name of Hockey's revival in India. Now, "Hockey India" must work on spreading the sport to common masses. basis reason of refrained public from this sport is lack of Stadium facilities. There are very few Turfs available in India, and they are mostly located in big cities. Their publicization is also minimum, with very few international level tournaments.( Juniors Asia Cup recently held in hyderabad was an important tournament after Seniors Asia cup held last year in Chennai.) PHL is a mojor club level tournament, but it hasn't have a FANS following before, after or throughout the season. Most of the teens who take up Hockey as a career end up their competency by securing a government job through sportsman quota. But, they are not to be blamed as one has to ensure his livelyhood.

Hockey India must invest to build some new stadiums in remote locations also with competent infrastructures. Then only the new generation will have a fair amount of exposure to this sport.
Secondly, media has to take responsibility for creating awareness for this sport. If they can promote fictious Aliens, 2012 doomsday, etc other craps to a mass gossip; why not a dying National sport be responsibily awared.
Corporates can play a driving role in this regard. They is no harm if fabulous amount of money get involved in the sport. if it is justified for cricket, so would be for hockey.
As a common mass, we must respect endangered Hockey; as we talk to respect our National Flag, Emblem, Anthem, bird and animal. Hockey is also prefixed as National Sport, and must be given similar regards and recognition.

RaZZevZ.com

First Day Night Show

2008-06-28T10:39:00.002+07:00

Thoda Pyar Thoda Magic

This movie can be remembered as an emotionally sweet movie. The movie had a lot of emotional pills with an impulsive start. As early as in the first scene Saif met the accident which orphaned four kids and changed Saif's life. Ranbir's (Saif) thesis of the story is the foundation for a happy end. As Ranbir had no friends, family since childhood, whomever he had loved was taken away ( from circumstances, not from God! God himself is portrayed as a common man living with his own set of expressions,in shape of Rishi Kapoor). that is why in the end an angel Gita ( Rani Mukherji) is gifted with tears and to live as a human after ranbir and kids started liking each other.

The animation of the movie was wonderful and sweet, indeed the YRF tie up with Disney is deploying that cutting edge. TPTM has some very good dialogues on civic sense and national integrity, like god gives minus points to those who makes their surrounding and cities untidy, a brief review by Saif on evolution of Sikhism or a sort of patriotic song in Rashtrapati Bhavan, which meant we have to build a nation while learning from our past.

A wonderful screenplay made light emotional scenes beatifully intense and there is a good amalgamation of emotion, delicacy, humor and magic. The background music is to be also credited for making TPTM memorable.

Saif as usual had been a style leader here also, with vest coats making ultimate style statements. Rani Mukherji's styling was bit orthodox from the latest collection of Nanny McAffe (but that's a part of story). With an emerging kids wear market in India;indeed TPTM has showcased a glimpse of global trends in this category.

Like " Jab We Met" TPTM could also be a high TRP affair after its TV release, and its music is alread rocking FM charts.

RaZZevZ.com

The WindoW

2008-06-08T23:50:00.002+07:00


Once there had been a librarian, who used to call anyone, anonymously anyone on weekends; not to listen people talk, instead his own voice.

through The WindoW, one day I realized the loneliness created by me around myself.

the window which changed perspectives.

RaZZevZ.com

RukRuk popular than ShahRukh

2008-06-08T23:25:00.001+07:00

There is no substitute for Shahrukh, but no doubt RukRuk is getting more popular than Shahrukh. Kya Aap Paanchvi fail Champu Hain is having a better promotion and better viewership. KAPFCH is a genuine copied version of Kya Aap Paanchvi Paas se Tej Hain. KAPFCH is a perfect blend of copy (inspiration) and creativity. In the TRP battle between Salman, Shahrukh, Shotgun and others Champu definitely leading. The viewer barometer of popular TV shows can be measured by the extent of people discussing something. Like this blog, discussing something watched on weekend TV. Some Logically convincing PJ questions from KAPFCH were really very creative. Like Agar Tulsi ka naam money plant hota to kya baa use accept karti? Or True/ False on Chandu ke Chacha ne chandu ki chacchi ko chandi ki katori mein chandi ke chammach se chatni chataye, Or the best one on Gabbar Singh was LKG passed as he knew counting till 3. Really Champu is as entertaining as Raju Shrivastava.

Also this weekend onwards Laughter challenge season 4 has begun, I think shotgun is not complementing Siddhu that well (as Shekhar Suman), hopefully Laughter Challenge –IV will continue as flag horse of comedy series despite below par first episode.

RaZZevZ.com

GOOD LUCK "GONY"

2008-06-08T15:30:00.001+07:00

ManPreet S Gony will be the first Indian ever to feature as a star debutant, with an established fan base. All credits to DLF IPL. It took 5 ODIs for Dhoni to reach Vizag for a blasting 148 runs innings against Pakistan to reach stardom. No one knew Yuvi before his debut. Gautam Gambhir had no recognition despite of years of successful domestic seasons before Debut. However, Dhoni had recognition in east zone domestic cricket. But, Gony is now a recognized face on global level. Hopefully this could be a blasting debut for the matured youngster.

Very few of U-19 cricketers like Parthiv, Pathan were known faces but they never had that amount of stardom which now Gony carries due to IPL. Success of IPL is evident after seven days, business channels covering profit-loss accounts of franchisees, anyhow news channels managing to make IPL still into News, also proposed IPL challenger series confirmed in September, and discussions over successive IPL formats with anticipated buyout policies.

There is a lot to feature in Indian cricket. The cricket season has been a continuous process since India’s Ireland visit last year. Due to IPL there had been no break from cricket. But, fortunately there is a big pool of talents enabling a perpetual rotation schedules among players.

ManPreet Gony’s last time inclusion in squad is a good sign for Indian pace attack. Selectors now always will have a pool of ample options.

“GOOD LUCK GONY”

RaZZevZ.com

Aren't you networking?

2008-06-08T01:32:00.002+07:00

History of social networking sites date back to 1997 with sixdegrees.com. However, the first networking site i ever used was Madiff qonnexions followed by zahoo 365. Initially, the networking sites didn't had that level of connectivity and popularity. They all failed perhaps because of stronger hold of online chat/messenger sites who had been in their prime those time. Then came Chirkut (a popular SNS, name changed ). The craze of chirkut stormed the youth of nation. the popular networking site has been based on simple format, least complicated interface and better user connectivity and a strong server with good quality donuts for us. It appeared as a strong platform for one's verbal creativity. Personally, i feel primitive SNS didn't understood the correct recipe to let oneself express interactively with that level of intensity. The verbalized performance of one's good friend inspired his/her circler's to give a better expressive version. Folks started listening with eyes on screens.

And now the popularity of Chirkut has given birth to many of the new social networking sites based in India. this has also lowered down popularity of messengers also! Surprisingly, chirkut is not the only site of medieval era of SNS evolution. there were many others like HiAll!, RaceBook, zahoo365 etc; which were introduced to net in between 2002 to 2004.

if we divide Social Networking Sites evolution in 3 phases, friendblaster, catchmates belong to early generations, chirkut evolution in medieval and SNS boom 2005 onwards as modern era. the modern phase even includes a networking site of a renowned Operating System provider! Does this means networking would be a commodity over the net? Till the time, we will have newer modifications and introduction, the commodity life cycle will be alived and networking business will boomed.

With leisure-hours getting lesser among our generation and realization of no-use virtuality; What is the future of probable SNS boom? whether these budding Desi/global dot com companies will be ever able to meet their bread-butter by online adds and hackers base. At present networking site has many things to offer dating, romance, music, videos, pictures, blogs, querries and answers, book reviews, interest communities etc.

what we will be able to share next? How long we will be entertained by sharing above.
Probably, future boredom of SNS will be overtaken by online games, which are old but renew-ably emerging on larger/stronger scales. Now we would have a next generation of online games, with a unanimous rating system for players. With a better user interface technologies online advertising is bound to be more interactive. Very soon we could have next door retail perishables advertised through net with innovations indeed.

Well! at present networking has allowed me to contact my lost friends, which i could have never been done without them. Even if they will be lowered down in their hits by nextgen onliners, the youth of today will never ever forget the good leisure time they had with SNS. especially, we feel more creative and expressive than ever!

RaZZevZ.com

sixdegrees.com (genuine name, source: www.jcmc.indiana.edu)
Madiff qonnections, zahoo365, chirkut.com, catchmates.com, racebook, hiall!!!, friendblaster ...are fictious website names

DLF IPL FINAL

2008-06-02T02:31:00.004+07:00

What a spectacular match this had been. Unlike two semi-finals the final of DLF IPL hadn't been a one sided affair. With a last ball victory Rajasthan Royals have proved they were unbeatable in their application and belief.

This had been a great clash between two cricketing brains, one youth other veteran. Both of them are deep thinkers. Really a high profile tournament must have a such nail biting finish. Unfortunately Dhoni ended on a loosing side, but he must carry forward this valuable capataincy experience to Indian national side also. he must have learned many good things in playing against the might of Warne. He must have been delighted on Yosuf's power shots for the collective Indian ambitions. Another good thing observed was a loosing side making huddle after match. This proves Dhoni is a man of novel ideas, this huddle must have reduced bit of the pain of being second instead of first.

Both the teams had good sense of team work and knowledge of corresponding responsibility domains. This application was little more in Royals, hence they won. Few mistakes out of nerves uncontrolled made Super Kings loose.

Throughout the tournament Royals played like Champions, and thus they are now. Now we will have main stream cricket storm coming next with Bangladesh Tri-series and Asia Cup coming next. Get geared guys very few months to perform for a better IPL auction value.

Misleading Electronic Media; Unfortunately Opinion Leaders in India

2008-06-01T22:06:00.007+07:00

Recently there had been a discussion on a NEWS channel over the contents of daily soaps on entertainment channels. That was an appreciable broadcast for mass awareness/ realization. But, I doubt is there any platform where we have our word to demand NO NONSENCE from NEWS channels.

Be it democracy or strategies of marketing, opinion leaders are always the prime people to make things even. I.e. opinion leaders are those who drive their followers. In the battles of TRP among NEWS Channels, they are misleading themselves in their role of mass broadcasters. As a viewer I feel that we are not getting quality contents through our news channels, especially HINDI NEWS CHANNELS.

We are not properly updated about the latest developments in Politics and government policies. Monsoon is overhead but there is no proper update on its expected intensity and arrival. A common man is unaware of economic measures taken against rising inflation, what decisions RBI has taken is never ever bothered by NEWS Networks, Mr. PM recently had few abroad trips, no one has been informed when, whom, and whys of such visits. Why there are no discussions over foreign policies of our government. Why the NEWS Channels are as good as gossip shows on ZOOM TV. Can’t we have some dedicated page3 news channels covering all these? The intensity with which celebrities are covered by Newsmen, there is a marginal demarcation line between channels like zoom and ajtak.

When Sanjay Dutt was being transported to some jail in Pune from Mumbai, at the same time Dr. Manmohan Singh was visiting Mumbai only on a very important visit. This visit was somewhere shown in InfoBar and throughout the day Dutt’s pilgrim was covered LIVE. For past ten days Noida double murder case is running LIVE. The pressure from media only motivated Noida Police to solve issue in a wrong way. Because the case had been covered so intensely with information, misinformation and dramatization that Police took unwanted pressure to give instant results; and eventually they did blunders. And everything is being gossiped LIVE. If the media is really so active and concerned to let victims have the real justice, why not they are updating on Nithari’s accused. Their case is still open despite obvious speaking evidences. What is courts next date of their hearing? Who will inform us?

Why we can’t be served NEWS which should have useful use by society. Why we are made believed to bother about U-tube video stunts, rumors, superstitions, small town murders, any insane climbing electric tower and many other unwanted stuffs/ gossips. Today NEWS in India is obviously TRP driven not society driven. Even they are served as a medium to promote TRP of TV shows on entertainment channels.

Why NEWS channels are not ethically driven? Why Glamour, poor language, eye-catching captions in big fonts are overtaking essence of correct, comprehensive and useful NEWS? Why a 24 hour LIVE NEWS CHANNEL is inferior to 30 minutes bulletin of DoorDarshan.
It is an alarming situation for PrasarBharti to tighten its control over Indian News channels. The open discussion started by DoorDarshan on social responsibility of electronic media should be continued on a wider scale and the discussion must end up with democratically approved strict code of conducts. The government / PrasarBharti must take initiatives of rating NEWS Channels and appreciating them. PrasarBharti should have some rights to blacklist and impeaching unethical players also. Below are some points which can be considered while preparing formats of a comprehensive evaluative system:-

1. Role towards society ( education, creating awareness towards fundamental rights and duties)

2. Meeting coverage standards of different NEWS sources ( e.g. government, politics, economy, business, sports and ‘entertainment & lifestyle’) on the broadcast weight specified by evaluation council.

3. Negative marks on nonsense NEWS broadcasting.

4. Setting standards to broadcast programs beneficial for rural population.

5. Evaluation of InfoBar contents.

Nonsense contents broadcast through NEWS Channels is the major problem due to high end TRP battle which demands a channels administration to make people paused with surfing remotes. If I&B ministry and PrasarBharti will not take required measures, credibility of Indian Electronic media will be vanished on global scale. We must foresee to build global NEWS broadcasting platform like CNN or BBC with quality contents on AIR.

Rajeev

DLF IPL- Reforming Indian Cricket

2008-06-01T17:28:00.003+07:00

It’s a historical Sunday today.

DLF IPL final between Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals; and definitely cricket will win.

Possibly all viewership records till date for sports in India will be broken in a few hours time. DLF IPL had been a tremendous success and this legacy is all set to continue for years. IPL has definitely popularized domestic cricket. Cricket in India had been growing vertically, with a limited number of stars having FAN base and media coverage, whoever achieved stardom in international cricket. Before IPL domestic level cricketers hadn’t much recognition. Thanks to IPL that we can now identify and recognize more of our cricketers. IPL has hence popularized cricket horizontally. Now media will have a good interest in domestic tournaments, where our newly emerged IPL stars will be performing. Next sessions NKP SALVE Challenger trophy will be more exciting where the domestic stars will be divided in three teams. The four day tournament will definitely improve its viewership stats. Similarly DULEEP TROPHY could have better media coverage.

DLF IPL and SETMAX have done the groundwork to give media and our viewership recognition to a bunch of domestic lads. Now it is all up to BCCI and NEO (having TV rights of domestic BCCI matches) to carry forward and popularize other domestic tournaments. A Mumbaikars or a Delhites disappointment was much more intense due to failure of their favorite teams compared to pride moments of winning Ranji Trophy in last two sessions respectively. It’s all due to negligible coverage of domestic tournaments. If I had been CEO of any such sports channel, should have tried all tricks to let media talk about domestic matches intensively. Sarcastically, media has emerged as opinion leaders and makes people think in the way they want.

For the first time, today a domestic fixture with few foreigners is all set to beat viewership records of Indian ODI matches. For the first time a domestic tournament final has a sky high ticket rates, even at a neutral venue. DLF IPL had been an event which was watched throughout globe and is now regarded as a landmark success for popularization/penetration of cricket to newer markets.

“Awaiting winds of change with this first reformation closing today”

Wait & Fate

2008-02-28T11:42:00.001+07:00

http://www.authspot.com/Poetry/Wait-and-Fate.87463

Preventive measures for Bird Flu

2008-01-22T11:28:00.000+07:00

Created on 21 January 2008.

copy right- RajeevSrivastava

Future of outsourcing industries in India

2007-10-17T01:16:00.000+07:00

BPO industries are observing the symptoms of weather change in India. According to a study conducted by a private news channel, the youth is anticipating a better career and life in other alternate sectors, like booming retail sector. Remember that night @ a call center, when Vroom lead and saved their extinction from their jobs. But, now opinion leaders like Vroom are opting out to quit US schedules or overnight work hours. US, it defines our fury as well as ambitions. A lucrative income source to economy from call centers is a source of saving money for western economies. That’s the basic of outsourcing and a win-win situation for both developing and developed economies. Similarly, Apparel export industry is a victim of suffering loss through Rupee Verses Dollar battle.

A vital clarification, there is a difference between importing and outsourcing. A premium product having equity and identification sent overseas is exported, e.g. Indian tea, unique crafts like sola-pith, Ponchampalli Sarees (which are also identified as Geographical Indications). But, a specified product shipped overseas in bulk by virtue of lower processing cost is classified as outsourced by the buyer. Apparel Exports and BPOs are outsourcing industries.

Call center or BPO industry, whether they are draining or damaging brains? An identity crisis for having inherited (Indian) and professional (American) names or speaking 8 hrs fluently in the accent for which one’s tongue was molded during his/her training modules.

Similarly Apparel export houses in North India get garments stitched through a rigorous run of 14-18 hrs at stretch. Here, compliance issues are shadowed under TOPSIA FIRE. (Topsia Tiljala belt in Kolkata is known for its leather tanneries and leather goods export business. As discovered, under extremely harsh working conditions surrounded by toxic chemicals, bonded-like labors are locked in factories where they work. A year ago, one such building caught fire and burnt all those who were locked inside.)

If todays symptoms evolve out into vast realities, the probable scene after 5-6 years would be like –

1. Similar symptoms will be observed for KPOs as we see with BPOs. Most of the today’s BPOs would have been converted to KPOs.

2. BPO industries doing well in smaller towns in India, giving opportunities for a global integration of small town youth. Indeed, professionally.

3. BPO industry flourishing in other SAARC countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives. Whereas today’s BPO business in Pakistan could observe similar symptoms as in India today.

4. In next 5-10 years telemarketers popping up on your mobile could be possibly calling you either from Nepal, Bhutan or Bangladesh.

5. SAARC ionization of Indian Languages esp. Hindi and Indian English

6. More legal immigration of SAARC citizens to India, supporting manpower requirement in outsourcing business.

7. Apparel export houses extensively catering to domestic players in retail.

8. Retailers outsourcing goods from other SAARC and African countries.

9. Boom in FMCG business with the boom in retail. Perpetual growth of mom and pop stores in India.

10. The sub-continent could emerge out as a self dependent eco-system of intra manufacturing and retailing.

RajeevSrivastava

ChinKara- The endangered gezelle

2007-09-01T03:53:00.000+07:00

Finally Salman returned his home with Katrina. This had been a long week with the news of Salman behind bars in Jodhpur. News channels covered every thing related to Salman, even the seat number 2A and words “Shukriya” addressed to fans from a balcony. it feels great to see so many people gathered to greet you at cost of some simple incentives.

By the way-

“ munh ki baat sune har koi, dil ke dard ko jane kaun; Awazo ke bazaaron mein Kahamoshi pehchane kaun”

This is what the chinkara community might express; if they had been given to express their views. I take this opportunity from our national news portals to enlighten us about CHINKARA.

Chinkara is a species of gazelle (a form of dear) that have the ability to attain high speeds for longer periods of time. Chinkara is classified as extremely vulnerable and endowed species in India. This had lead to extinction of cheetas in India. If there is a bottleneck in a food chain it leads to such results. This had been possible by virtue of poaching culture flourished in India since centuries. After independence the centuries long hobby sports is banned and wild life is legally preserved through sanctuaries.

http://www.answers.com/chinkara

The above link has a set of vital information, which our high TRP news channels could have referred to broadcast some intelligent contents through the idiot box.

But this issue doesn’t begins with Chinkaras and end with Salman Khan. In fact it begins with mankind verses animal-kinds; with a big (?) mark, whom to address beasts. The chinkara represents a herd of endangered species, threatened less by the predators in their food chain but more by the mankind. We ourselves as a community called mankind are predators. We kill those speechless; just for the sake of past-time, food, cosmetics, medicines, decoration, and fashion. Developing countries like India always had been sourcing destinations for the greedy eyes in western world. According to sources, illegal wildlife trade worth 10 billion USD.

Illegal hunting is defined as poaching. A simple fishing could be a crime if it is not the fishing season. Hunting had been a hobby sports across different cultures and civilizations, if we go through the pages of history. In Europe, during medieval times killing of deer (the royal animal) was termed illegal. This is one of the early laws made against poaching. During famines and peasants protecting their fields had been a reason for poaching in past. At present, increase in population and hence urban area protruding 360 degrees are major concerns for killing animals. Especially, adjoining villages near national parks and sanctuaries have such struggles where folks are concerned about their cattle and communities. One such struggle is sarcastically narrated with a Tiger’s perspective in a must read book “ A tiger for Malgudi” As mentioned before, skins, furs and feather of rare species is fashion statement; giving all sorts of want-demand symphony to the illegal business.

Below is a list of popular animal products and their preys-

· Musk deer- cosmetics

· Elephant tusk for ivory

· Turtles for meat

· Rhino horns for aphrodisiac (well! There are herbs available for this)

· Tiger and leopard skin for fashion products

· Bird – pet trade and feather decoration

· Snake- leather industry

As known through the official website of project tiger; the number of tigers (or predators) represents the status of the entire eco-system. Since carnivorous are on the top of food chain and their existence enumerates existence of other attributes of the system. This had been a big reason for extinction of Cheetas from Indian soil; as chinkaras themselves vanished from the food link.

A deer with a 50 KMpH consistent running speed can survive to instantaneous velocity of 110 KMpH of a cheetah to prove the theory of struggle for existence. But how they both can withstand firing bullets and invisible traps which are alien attributes in the eco-system? Shouldn’t we realize to abhor this brutuality irrespective of overshadowing personalities?

RajeevSrivastava

Acknowledgement- www.answers.com ; www.projecttiger.com

Most emotionally touching movie scenes

2007-08-29T01:35:00.001+07:00

The struggle of a deaf and dumb to make it through to the national cricket team; It gives a sense of belongingness to see someone like Iqbal, delivering his first ODI delivery. The last scene of movie Iqbal is my personal favorite, rated as the most emotional movie scene I’ve ever seen. Last scene of the movie is a dream come true for a boy; who finally managed to break away the limitations set in society, walls of discrimination through family/ financial problems. This scene shows a huge crowd cheering up Indian cricket team against Pakistan in an ODI. Nasiruddin Shah, the personal coach of the boy in pavilion; Indian cricketers taking ground for fielding, crowd cheering up Iqbal Khan as a flag bearer of the legacy set by Zaheer and Pathan. Somewhere in the crowd is Iqbal‘s family. His father is also seen cheering for his lad, his mother with a peculiar emotional smile and Iqbal’s sister in full joy of seeing his brother on a big stage to perform. There are no dialogues in this scene, only the movie’s background is heard with a different tone.

Then comes the most beautiful instance of the movie, iqbal’s sister full of joy comes forward the the huge boundary fence, to get a closer view of the distant pitch where iqbal is all set to bowl his first ODI ball. While coming to the fence she is seen in full joy, laughing and cheering; but suddenly two drops of tears come to those lovely pair of eyes. That instance gives a complete flashback of what happened throughout 120 minutes of movie. The background theme music plays the role of catalyst and iqbal’s sister Tafiza acted her best; cheering up again after sweeping out tears of happiness. This instance of the scene conditions my mind as I’ve known Iqbal personally and I’m also that much happily emotional at that moment. Indeed, Tafija’s synthesis was perfectly screened to Iqbal’s thesis.

I believe Iqbal’s thesis is inspired from Santiago’s journey in the Alchemist. Santiago was a shephered, Iqbal too had to graze his buffalo’s daily. Santiago met The Alchemist in the oasis. Shreyas Talpade’s discovery of Nasiruddin as a former cricketer was like finding oasis in desert only. Loosing everything and finding alternate ways were indeed the alchemist’s way of transforming metal to gold. Like Santiago, Iqbal too had lucrative options to end up his dream for tangible and available benefits. Indeed, the whole Universe conspiracy to make one achieve his desperate dream supports all synthesis and thesis of TheAlchemist in Iqbal.

“yaar DJ! Main to kuwara hi mar gaya” is another such emotional scene from movie Rang De Basanti. Sharman Joshi spoked the above quoted words to Amir Khan before dying due to bullets received on his chest. That guy was not that brave, but a real good humorous friend to the group. His death with a smile was inspirationally emotional.

That death was a martyr’s one, the movie had wonderful simulation of BhagatSingh’s time with the scene in 2005. This was an achievement for both the above movie directors, who first made the characters as someone one’s own; and then their achievement/tragedy gives an impact to some specific corners of heart.

The climax of Waqt- race against time; has the same emotional intensity. Akshaya Kumar; the irresponsible son asks people over National Television to donate one moment of their lives so that his father Amitabh can witness an important moment in his life. Altogether it was an innovative concept that someone survived few more moments before a pre-estimated departure from life. That Speech from AkshayaKumar; was another great touching climax. full creditable!

A Pilgrilm through mumbai continued....

2007-08-24T11:42:00.000+07:00

I’ve got tried all conveyance options available between thane and Andheri. These days I use a combination of them. Indeed my favorite is local trains; when there is a bit of low rush. Local trains in Mumbai are fast and pollution free; and from childhood days I loved trains.
Trains have a wonderful level of fascination to people. I remember my childhood days; it was not that frequent for me to travel through train. Instances of train with red coaches ( by the way red coaches are on a merge of extinction, now 90% of trains are colored in shades of blue) at humayunpur and over-bridge railway crossing in Gorakhpur was a fascination to watch. Gazing and chasing railway tracks with occasional instances were filled in the boredoms of bus journeys. I remember one such rare journey between Barailley and Nainital; where a large sum of Kilometers of road was adjacent to meter gauge railway track. Irony to my life! I’ve never ever travelled in meter guage trains.

Back to the pilgrim in Mumbai! If you travel through any of the three nerves of Mumbai (harbor, Central or Western) during non-peak hours; it will be a complete paradise. My first experience to Mumbai local was such a good experience; when I took and changed Harbour Locals from Andheri till Kharghar in the summers of 2006. Got seat and eventually window seat, and was amaged to see Thane Creek before Vashi. That sea water was unexpected sight,by virtue of that much long rail and road bridge. By the way, an extension of Thane creek is seen from my home in Thane.

But Thane has its own Chowpatti, a lake which is visited by folks in evening time. This place has its name but better call it Thane Ka chowpatti. Thane ka chowpatti is near to railway station and these days an overbridge project is commissioned on one of its side. To add glory to its view it has two man made islands. The one in center can be reached through boat, and it looks fabulous in night when the green plantation of this island shines in yellow light. Each and every color of idols, decoration and plantation comes to life in the effect of yellow flashlights surrounded by opacity of lake water in night.

Thane is full of fabulous views, another such view is the mountain seen from my living room. Sanjay Gandhi National Park begins from this mountain only which is hardly a kilometer away (that point is Tikujini Wadi). One can see a big green velvet cover over the hill, this grassland, herbs and shrubs between rocks and trees add up a million dollar value to the beauty of the hill. There are many such mind blowing sights in Thane.

There is one hill in Vikhroli, which haunted me a year back when I was a traveler in Harbour line route. I used to wonder in which part of Mumbai is there a hill with so many lights. Over the eastern side of Hiranandani Gardens, there is a hill which is home to many people. During night, when these people switch on their lights, it appears as a mountain of lights; and viewed till greater distances like eastern expressway and Habour line (before Vashi) and from Airolli (Harbour Line). Between Thane and Airolli too there are many spectacular views.

The stretch of Powai Lake, which is stretched more by the traffic congestion during rush hours. Powai Lake reminds me about the great RamGarhTaal in Gorakhpur. The two great lakes that I’ve seen are NainiTaal and RamgarhTaal. Naini Taal is great because of its uniqueness which resembles an enormous natural glass of water; happened by virtue of mountains on all sides filled with underground and rain water sources. Greatness of RamgarhTaal in Gorakhpur is defined by its enormous stretch and depth, which I felt endless before I saw Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal at different instances.

The biggest problem of Mumbai is road traffic. There are few critical bottlenecks, like Kanjurmarg-Powai-SEEPZ road, connectivity between Ghatkopar and SakiNaka and Toll Naka on Eastern Express Way to name but three. This adds fury to commuters. The main reason for traffic congestion is unlimited commuters and variable width of roads. One can’t get 8 lanes everywhere. Mumbai is rapidly growing. It’s a big bang and will continue to be.
Be it local trains or roads, they are always filled with commuters who move from places to places. It is like a pilgrim only; the folks going for their jobs, duties and business are devotees only. Since, knowingly or unknowingly they are contributing towards the GDP of a nation. In spite of heavy rains and corresponding troubles, most of people don’t bunk their jobs. They conform to their duties.

RajeevSrivastava

img: view of Eden Woods/Thane Creek from my home's window

A pilgrim through the roads of Mumbai

2007-08-05T02:01:00.000+07:00

If it is asked what is sanity? I would say that for me sanity is the phenomenon of experiencing bliss through some set of activities . Surprisingly I achieve that when I stand on the doors of local trains in Mumbai. When the hairs feel the cushion of winds blowing through them, occasionally water drops from heaven kisses my cheekbone; these are the moments when I forget about my home and work. Those are the moments when I’m Rajeev alone. These are the winds of change, which change entire meanings of life. I don’t regret about pending works at office, or reaching home late witnessing the curse of urban traffic.

Through sharing auto-rikshas, buses and locals, while performing the daily pilgrim. There are many wonderful instances, during my daily travel. The most glazing moment comes when I see the runway of Sahar International airport through the windows of the double-decker bus. I get in queue for longer durations only to ensure myself that I get a window seat in the upper bus of the two buses running together.

The sight of runway is spectacular. Straight and parallel runway road, green grass in surroundings, array of small, medium, large and extra large airplanes, airport vehicles and a healthy feeling of ambitious dreams all together. That is why I call it the best ever view of linear perspective I’ve seen in my life. Linear perspective or one point perspective is the plane of reference or view in which the viewer can see objects with only one vanishing point. Indeed! My dreams collectively vanish to one symbol of achievements in life. I haven’t been to airplanes, but till now I’ve seen numerous landings and take-offs.

Really it feels great to see those mammoth creatures flying overhead, either taking or lifting folks. Well, I remember my school visit to AirForceStation Gorakhpur, I was a kid then. The back to back take-offs of three Jaguars* fighter planes were a magnificent experience for life. We were asked by AirForce officials to see the view from a dense-black painted three sided wall. Indeed, that absorbed much of the loud sound. Still we were in decibels of sound energy. I remember we had numerous short pauses in our classes at AirForceSchool, whenever there were such arrays of jaguars went berserk.

About the two storied buses, the upper floor gives a fabulous perspective to the roads; the bird’s eye view. If you sit on the front seats, you will have air coming from three sides filling the boredom of 45 minutes ride between Kurla to Andheri into a journey of quest with innocence. The elevation of merely six to seven feet between the two floors, reminds me Ranganath’s truck journey in RagDarbari. It had a wonderful simulation of Truck (in my case double bus) with helicopter.

Well, being in a metro is very different from my life at my home town Gorakhpur. Two hours of conveyance time to office would mean, traversing a large sum of kilometers; back at my native place. In fact Thane and Andheri are not adjacent sub-urbs. There are many things to thrill on the way; but what kills the most is the waiting time. But also, one can see many faces of life, while travelling in those rush hours of Mumbai traffic. We all working folks, spanned across age group of 18 to 60 will be seen rushing towards daily destinations.

Indeed Mumbai is unbreakable; I witnessed it exactly a year before when more blood was donated than the amout spilled across the railway tracks . Folks get united in the name of Ganapati. Ganapati bappa moraya are the golden words of unity here; one can hear the roars while crossing the Mulund from thane anytime during rush hours. One shouts, many conclude. These are the words of harmony, belief, devotion and mutual agreement/understanding of utilizing maximum floor space with as many pair of feets to accomodate. Indeed, one can understand the value of a small piece of land one posses while travelling through these mass bearers and transporters (i.e. local trains only). Chanting is another lovely feature of this pilgrim. There is a sect, which chants bhajans while travelling the pilgrim. These chants are spiritual phenomenon of this journey. They fill blank spaces® of every one in the scene. They must witness trance everyday after hours of bhajans.

RajeevSrivastava
image sourced: bbc.co.uk
* jaguars are the fighterplanes, named after an agile member of the cat family. Jaguar Fighter Planes are symbol of glory to Air Force Station, Gorakhpur.
® blank spaces concept sourced from “Witch of Portebello”; Paulo Coelho 2007)

राग दरबारी

2007-01-22T22:41:00.001+07:00

It was Shivpalganj, from where the story begins and terminates. According to Vaidji(Ranganath's uncle) 3 pillars for rural development are Village school, Village Co-operative movement and the GramPanchayat, in the above sequence. The three pillars have been shifted, but the concept remains the same, the corruption. What I loved about this bestseller was its humor. It covered almost everything under the sun of 1960s. it had humorous references from mythology, history, current issues, science, English and Hindi literatures. PauloCoelho is as poetic and pictographic as ShriLalShukla. This work was awarded by Sahitya Academy in 1970.
Every character has its own characteristics in this work and simulation of ShrilalShukla of minute details to unpredicted characteristics was unbelievable. I was captured by this bestseller when it began with the description of “The Truck Journey”………mind blowing……. This has a brunch of great characters….its a multi-starer…

It covers the issues of 1960s, which had been very hot those times. If you have gone through my blog “Inclining Perspectives”, the significance of this work is realized. The history of that decade comes alive in this work. 1960s, a time when Saira Bano and Wahida Rehman ruled bollywood, a time when there was no term bollywood, a time when co-operative movement was at its peak, a time when freedom fighters existed, a time when recently Zamindari was abolished, a time when Fashion word has different perspectives, a time when agriculture was the primary factor of Indian economy, when it capitalism vs socialism, when it was congress and communist at parliament, it was dawn of green revolution, when there was no TV, …….
We have altogether different issues in 2007. About corruption someone said, Shivpalganj is everywhere in the country. Since 1968 to 2007 it existed within us, but changed form to support CharlesDarwin’s theory of evolution.

RajeevSrivastava

Spiritual bliss

2007-01-05T03:33:00.000+07:00

This Blog is dedicated to year 2006 and I’m sharing my best experience of that particular year.

It was second degree Rei-Ki seminar at Alipore, Kolkata and the participants had a wonderful experience of “extensive breathing exercise”. We were asked to inhale deeply and exhale instantly so that it makes a noise from the nose and not to open our eyes once the exercise begins. This cycle of deep inhaling and rapid exhaling was to be repeated in quick successions. We were all instructed by Amar Sir (Rei-Ki grandmaster) through out the exercise. More to inhale and quicker to exhale; try it once!

I started feeling changes in my body. I felt like creating some sort of energy sphere around me. I being the source of this energy balloon created all around me. The soothing music with different notes and visualization of the ubiquitous divinity in our most preferred picture made me feel different things at one time. I was being acted by different forces over me, also my internal energy was at a stake of explosion. It was like an unstable equilibrium, the never ending exercise made me like a supernova yet to explode into the elemental most form of existence. I felt the flow of blood through my veins; I guess my body was swelled in first 10 minutes of the exercise. I felt if somehow I’ve patience, I can count all my cells. Every idle tissue was excited to extreme, they were all loosing and gaining energy at most, and continuous breathing served as a fuel for this phenomenon. Every thing was exited to the threshold of spiritual bliss. I discovered the existence of life that was well within me. And for the first time I was able to distinguish Me, My Body and Soul.

Soul is eternal, but like a software which have a significant value only when it has an Operating System to perform. Our body is that OS for soul. Soul and body are complementary.

But who was ‘me’ whom I discovered then?

ME is a remarkable development by actions of six senses, society and surroundings, perpetual humanity syndromes, time and many seen and unseen eternal phenomenon with the soul and body. Consider a pot, soul is the image that was transferred from his mind through hands to the wheel. The product out of clay, water, heat and processes is body. The decorations done on pot are external influences like society, peer parallaxes.

During those moments of spiritual bliss; I felt each of my cell acting as a membrane holding my soul to restrict it from getting away. Somehow if that limen is achieved, I believed the soul could be freed from that mesh of infinite cells. That would be a supernova of human universe. Later I came to discover that it is one of the several ways to do Samadhi. But for a first timer the limen of Samadhi can’t be achieved.

Samadhi is when ME vanishes to soul of salvation. Body is an ever changing medium of eternal journey of soul.

It was energy and energy everywhere, I felt cushioned with the awakening at the micro level. I was emitting light and energy, I was a universe where those cells rotated in their proximity by virtue of divinely influence. I touched my hair, with still my eyes closed; my fingers moved very slowly and I felt each of them individually. I felt the aura of my body. After 30-40 minutes from beginning the exercise was over, I opened my eyes and lied still for another 5-10 minutes before everything came to normal pace.

This experience was next to salvation which made me realize ‘the significance of my insignificance’.

RajeevSrivastava

Inclining perspectives-1

2006-08-24T19:37:00.000+07:00

History a stimulus to present and future; History of today is reflected in tomorrow. But, History is influenced by the rulers. Historians write what their dictators (or prevailing leaders) want. How can a writer, in those times when there was no freedom of speech and expression go against his authorities? Even in today’s world where media is said to be enjoying this above mentioned freedom; is it confident enough to say that they are not influenced? Take Kashmir issue as an example; Indian and Pakistani media are contradicting to themselves, even the neutral observers are biased depending on their interests to the sub-continent.

To any event comprising of two parties there are three views, each of former, latter and the Truth (better to say neutral). Why to say neutral? In the “own perspective” no one is undeniable. Things are very much justified; be it LTTE, ULFA, SIMI, or Al-Queda, their damn acts are justified in their “own perspectives”. 9/11 was justified by Osama, Iraq and Afganistan was justified by America, Israel is justified, even America was justified after the biggest ever massacre of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Someday India will resolve its inner conflicts by virtue of prevailing demographic amalgamationswhen our beurocracy (and of course historians) would prove the much required justification to our “own perspective”. So “own perspective” can not be condemned by individuals. Truth in this case is “own perspective” of a neutral observer. This is an ideal in this very relative/perpetual political world.

This is why histories are contradicting by respective nationalism and their “own perspective”. Revision of NCERT textbooks is also a reflection of the historian’s way of pleasing their prevailing leaders, which is an indication of their ballot bank biasness. What if.. the Kauravas had been able to win the battle of Mahabharata? Duryodhana might have been retained his name Suyodhana, Shakuni was observed as a great well wisher of hastinapur, there had been temples of Bhism Pitamah and so on. If the written history is biased and histories to be written will be influenced, then what would be the probable significance of knowing the unknowns?

Your response carries a significant value.

RajeevSrivastava

my personal experience

2006-07-16T15:51:00.000+07:00

MUMBAI after 7/11

Such a lovely place; defined by a versatile mumbaikar way of living. My two month stay to this metro is about to over, in between I experienced so many new things! Two of them I will never forget are unlimited rains and local trains. None of them stops when they get going.

“Insignificant contributions added together achieves a significant goal”

This is what I experienced in Mumbai, when we got a robust recovery from those massive blasts. I witnessed one of those blasts (Khar); the black smoke of that massive impact of sound was appalling. There were bodies dumped on both side of the track, I was in a harbor line local, when I heard explosion. Both trains stopped, I saw people running away from Virar Fast local, towards the east side. Even people in our local got consternate to get away from danger. It was a run for life situation, and none of us knew that it was one of 8 serial blasts. Next to do thing was to inform at home that I was safe and keep updating me till I reach back safe. That was a beginning of a long ordeal. Me and my friend decided to avoid local. We had to go Kharghar in Navi Mumbai; from Khar we took auto for Bandra to get BEST bus for Vashi. But, there had been a blast in Bandra too. There were police vehicles, fire brigades and ambulances in action. Station area was sealed and buses over crowded. We decided to get a cab for our destination. This was the slowest journey I ever had, vehicles were just rushing away for home. Because of police checking on eastern express highway, we got much delayed.

Another inconvenience in this ordeal was failure of network in our mobiles. I was not able to know even my account balance. Calls were not connected unless we tried numerously, once connected got disconnected while talking. Even messages were undelivered. And a top up to that, there were uninterrupted heavy rains to make slower taxi ride more boring.

When I reached home after 3 hours of taxi ride I was shocked to see the close images on TV. I saw people helping others and later I decided to donate blood to give my insignificant contribution for a significant cause of mankind.

RajeevSrivastava

extracted from my dear diary

SPIRITUAL BLISS

2006-06-30T18:00:00.000+07:00

illuminant rays of dawn,
the cosmic energy;
entered my heart,
kindled the light of wisdom;
omni present spiritual bliss,
"i felt significance
of my insignificance"
when i felt REI-KI
flow through my hand.

RajeevSrivastva

significance of my insignificance

2006-06-30T13:51:00.000+07:00

Once I woke up in my dream,
a traveler of enormous universe,
I saw planets and our sun,
bypassed him for farther run,
saw numerous stars of our galaxy!
moving ahead I witnessed that much galaxy.
they were created preserved and also destroyed,
in that unit of universe.
That much units I crossed further more,
I felt insignificant,
before I saw an enormous pair of hands,
playing with the balloon
through the core of which,
I traveled so far.
Yet again I saw an open sky,
with exactly that much number of stars
and similar depth of zenith.
I saw a reflection of ME in those hands,
where I ended my exploration,
when I knew significance of my insignificance.

RajeevSrivastava
rajeev_vri@yahoo.co.in