Racism

From the day I came to Australia, the one question that I have been asked over and over
again by people in India is - "How is the racism there?". I don't blame them. The news
channels and other 'information' media have shouted loud and clear that the white-skinned
people are racists in many instances.

However, I want to shed light on somethings the media, for some reason, is not interested
in projecting. I am talking about the behaviour of the brown-skinned people and the
Chinese/Vietnamese etc. I will limit my discussion to just Indians as I do not understand
the ways of the other races.

If you see a flock of people walking together blocking the way, talking loudly, cracking
jokes, you don't have to think twice about who they could be. While it is not illegal to do
this, it is considered extremely ill-mannered here. But no, "We don't care. We have friends.
We are social animals and we will live like this only. After all, I am working here and
contributing to the well-being of their economy."

The buses/trains have boards clearly stating that eating/drinking in buses/trains is
prohibited. But..."No, only I can cook the best 'smelling' food. And I don't have any other
place but the train to eat it. To hell with those who feel pukish because of the 'aroma' of
my delicious yummy food. After all, I have paid for the ticket."

Again, buses and trains have 2-3 seats reserved for the old and disabled. It is clearly
marked as "Priority Seating". But my fellow beings are least bothered. There are other seats
in the bus. But.. "I will sit here only since this is close to the entrance. So what if
someone is having to face a little more difficulty. They can always go and sit on the other
seats."

Oh! And yes, I forgot the most important time. Boarding time for a flight!!!! "I don't give
a damn if they announce that only rows 1-20 are supposed to board. Even though it is pre-
allocated seats, I will still rush in first so that I can have all the overhead luggage
space for myself"

And then there are the guided tours. Some tour guides are unnecessarily generous and decide
to distribute some goodies. Immediately, our Indian friend gets a doubt.. "Hey Mate! (Ya..
notice the way they are 'adopting' Australian culture). Is that for free?" URgghh.. I squirm
and try to hide my face. What to do, I can't change the colour of my skin. Darn! The guide
says, "Yes, Sir." Indian friend discusses with his other friend, "How many do we need? In
any case, lets take many. After all, it is free". And with that, only instant death looks
like a feasible option, not hiding my face.

I can go on and on and on.. I see such instances everyday, everywhere. Lifts, cafes, banks,
everywhere. The primary motive is: "I should get as much out of as less as possible AND Let
the rest of the world go to hell. I don't care. I will live life my way only."

Of Course, the above cannot be generalized to all Indians. There are many sensitive ones
too. But picture this: You are walking on a busy street. A lady comes running to you and
asks you for some money. You are not sure if this is a genuine cry for help or some sort of
game to trick you. In most instances, you walk past her. The white-skinned people are facing
something very similar.

They do not know which one of us is good and which one is not. They do not want to take
chances and hence simply try to avoid you. Some don't sit next to you in buses 'cause they
never know when you'll pop-out a lunch box. In some cases, they just ignore and in others,
they yell at you. All this is attributed to racism.

It reminds me of an incident I once saw on the road in Pune. There was a lot of traffic and
it is very common for a rick guy to drive perilously close to a 2-wheeler. The same thing
happened and a 2-wheeler guy lost balance. He got wild and started bashing
the rickshaw driver. A lot of people gathered and the next day I read this in the news..
"Muslim guy bashes Hindu rick driver on the road". I was speechless.

Discrimination is everywhere. In India, in Maharashtra, there is a fight to drive Biharis
out. Brahmins consider themselves superior to non-Brahmins for no apparent reason. South
Indian, North Indian. Your accent is funny. Your turban is funny. So many castes, so many
religious differences.

Having said that, I do completely agree that not all of whites are saints. Some could be
having the feeling of superiority and what not. But for one person to hurt another, there could be a million other reasons. The guy could be drunk. The other guy could have provoked him. Even
if there is no valid reason, such incidents are common and happen everywhere. Its only when
a white guy and brown guy are involved, does it become racism.

There is no end to this and no solution to this. Just don't label it as racism. Don't buy this crap that the media sells. It only makes matters worse

'I' don't have an 'eye' for poetry

Humans think
Wish we could fly
But its the birds that fly

Saints think
Wish we could lie
But its the liars who lie

Water thinks
Wish we could dry
But its the air that dries

Men think
Wish we could cry
But its the women that cry

The poor think
Wish we could buy
But its the rich that buy

Failures think
Wish we could score high
But its the winners that score high

Talkatives think
Wish we were shy
But its the loners that are shy

Masons think
Wish we could wear a tie
But its the officers that wear a tie

Butchers think
Wish we could bake a pie
But its the baker that bakes a pie

Fly, lie, dry, cry, buy, high, shy, tie, pie
God thinks with a sigh
After all, one day you'll all die

Sometimes its the loser that wins

It was just a game
or so I thought
Until they announced the name
and I remember the loser fought

It all came down to one point
you take it you win
The opponent didn't want to disappoint
and thus was committed a sin

The ball fell outside the line
But the opponent displayed qualm
The loser didn't argue to say the point was mine
He showed grace and quiet aplomb

The winner takes it all they say
The trophy is all the opponent got
What the loser had nobody could take away
'cause integrity and dignity are not bought

Timepass

All I want
is to write a poem
All I want
is to see if I can write without a theme
For All I know
I have written a poem
For All you know
It has a theme that is called Poem without a theme

Be proud to be an Indian...

....who owns his mistakes and wants to mend them. Indians are doing well in many different
spheres. However, there are definitely a few shortcomings and I would be glad if we could
overcome these and try going "that extra mile", as they call it. Sadly, even though it is
true, many would not even be ready to accept it :(. Of course, not all Indians do all that I
am going to write now. But those who do, should try not to get offended and instead,
understand my point and try to change their ways to make this world a better place to live in.

What tops my list is lack of basic courtesy and respect for another individual. Be it a lift,
bus, airports or any queue for that matter, we just want to push our way through and be the
first to enter. If not push, just try and sneak in somehow. If not that, we just ask a
'friend' standing in the queue to buy our stuff. This behavior is totally disgusting and I
really wish in spite of large crowds, we do not show this mad rush to somehow grab our thing
and not bother even if the rest go to hell.

On the same lines is the meager display of politeness. Given a situation where we know that
the other person is wrong, our first action is not to try and understand the other's point of
view. Invariably, we try to offend him, bully him, show him down by yelling at him. For
example, while I do agree that it is disgusting for one person to take a call on speaker phone
from his desk disturbing others, I certainly feel that there is a polite way of asking him to
pick up the receiver or book a meeting room. But what we normally tend to do is just stand up
and shout at him saying, "Hey, is that the way you take a call? What are meeting rooms for?".
And as you can imagine, he does not budge. The better way could have been to make him realize
his folly politely. Saying, "Hey, I am sorry if I am disturbing you. I was just wondering if
there's anything wrong with your headset. If so, can I help you? If not, would you mind
picking up the receiver." He would definitely oblige.

Another thing I wish to see tranformed in our society is all this hype and hoopla about
religion, caste, creed etc. Reservations are a pain. Not to mention, the age-old meaningless
traditions. I wish they all transform to take a more meaningful and logical form. A bride is
supposed to 'fast' on the day of her wedding right from the morning. What fun can she derive
on the most important day of her life. The list of such 'superstitions' is endless. Of course,
everything has been morphed to suit oneself. But there are many who are left with no choice.

Coming to creativity or inventions, I definitely feel that for the quantity we have, we
display really poor quality. It includes me too. We are such a huge population, but real
inventions seldom happen here. We are mere enhancers or implementers or even worse, just users of technology and science discovered by someone else. We can attribute a number of reasons to this like lack of infrastructure, lack of proper guidance, skills etc. But I don't buy any.
Think of creativity. There is no dearth of mediums by which we can display creativity. Still,
even today, we copy films, ideas for TV shows from other countries..:(. Its not that we are
doing NOTHING at all. But what we are doing is way too less when we look at the number of
people we have.

Then there is the much talked about Sports. We have this habit of appreciating and putting
people on pedestals for the smallest of their accomplishments. Fancy this - Ishant Sharma is
reportedly one of the greatest bowlers. I feel like laughing. In Australia, they are still
thinking if McGrath was indeed one of the greatest bowlers and a muchhhhhhhh junior Ishant has already been declared greatest in India. Its the same with Sania Mirza. The word 'great' is
used loosely in sports. Very similarly, teams are trashed after one single bad performance
also. If the Indian football team doesn't qualify for the world-cup, they are treated as if
they are the biggest traitors of the nation. These are major deterrents for sportsmen to do
well.

What should I say about our media. Lesser said the better. They anyway say everything. They seem to be the know-alls. We no longer have channels that report news. Or maybe, the word news has been redefined. Our 'news' channels have better stories than our soaps. God save us all in this regard. Everybody knows what 'great help' their live coverage was to our NSG commandos during the Mumbai attacks. And all channels are always the first to report whatever junk news. So what!!

Same is the case with law and order. Courts are a joke. Policemen are thieves. Lawyers are liars. Politicians are money-minting machines. Of course, similar is the case with other countries too. Magically, the country is till running. Defies logic.

One more thing I wish to see as a change in us Indians is the way we behave when we go to
other countries. We should remember that we go there not for the benefit of that country, but
only for our own benefit. We should not try to behave as if we are in our own country. For
example, it was insane of that family to go and immerse Ganesha idols in Thames River in UK
and argue with policemen when they prohibited them from doing so. We must shake off some
practices and try adapting ourselves to their culture and respect their laws and ways of
living. Even small things like giving your baby an easy-to-pronounce name makes life easier
for everyone ;)

One last thing is the apathy we show towards things that do not benefit us monetarily or
otherwise. For example, we never show any responsibilty towards environment. At work, we have separate bins for wet and dry waste. But people hardly care and mix both. Isn't it the least
we could do to help recycling? We do not consciously try to switch off lights/fans when not
using them. We do not try to save fuel at signals and blah blah. I agree that this problem is
certainly not specific to Indians but to everybody. Still, if we as Indians try making a
difference, the difference made would be immense.

I think I have cribbed enough about our wrong-doings. I thought there is no point writing
about what we do well. We should continue to do that correctly and also try and mend our ways
wherever possible. A little consideration goes a long way in making us better people, if not
anything else...

Unanswerable marvels

In no particular order, I often wonder:

Where/Who is God?

Does anything happen to us at all after our death? Or are we mere biological organisms that'll
perish and that'll be the end of it all? Is there actually "the other world" that we go to?

How would the world be if everybody was nice? All the "bad" people have caused the world to
come up with so many laws, so many security devices - including doors :P.
If everybody was nice, there would be no doors, no locks, no keys, no road-dividers, no
traffic signals, no weapons, no identity cards, no police, no courts, no jails and so onnnn..
Even with all this around, there is so much unemployment. Imagine, what would the
manufacturers and employees of all the above do if those things did not exist at all!!

How does a language develop from scratch? How was the first dictionary written?

How did human beings manage to make so much machinery, so many vehicles blah blah. I feel
dumbfounded whenever I go inside a factory and I feel so useless for not contributing in
anyway to any of that. There are 4 kinds of people - the inventors, the enhancers, the users
and the breakers. All 4 are needed for the world to function. I can see myself as a mere
enhancer of the lowest degree.

What makes Nature work? Is there something governing it?

What do animals think/feel when they see human beings building things all around them? Do they understand that something is happening? If they don't, then there is such a high probablity
that we humans also do not understand even what we see or is brain the differentiating factor?

What all is mankind unaware of? I think the volume of that would be googolplex the amount of
things we have discovered so far

What are we? What's the purpose of our lives in this universe. Think of how extremely huge
this universe is, think of galaxies, space etc. and then you'll suddenly feel so
insignificant.. all our issues are so small and so irrelevant to the existence of this whole
universe

What would happen if we leave a bunch of new-born babies all alone in an island? Will they all
die or will they grow up to form a society similar to ours - with language, rules etc. or will
they come up with a totally different way of life?

And of course, why did humans make such stringent rules that many of them have to die of
hunger, have to face poverty, have to struggle so much to travel from one part of the world to
the other.

Who planted the seed of evil in this earth?

If ghosts do not exist at all, why are they talked about? Who imagined about them first?

Is it really possible to tell fortune?

How are interests formed? What part of the brain registers interests? What are emotions? How
are they formed?

To what extent technology will advance?

How long is the life of earth?

How was music developed?

And of course, what would I have been had I not been a software engineer :P

A hurried narration of our Thailand trip

I have been meaning to write about this trip for the past 2 days. But my mind is flooded with so much to write that I don't know how to frame the entire thing. Anyway, here is my sincere attempt to do justice only to the itinerary.

We started from Pune on 5th March at about 3 in the afternoon. Reached Mumbai by 8pm, had a sumptuous meal and reached the airport. The flight took off by 12.30am and we reached Bangkok by 6am on 6th March.

Day 1: We took a bus to Pattaya as the check-in time in hotels there was 2pm. We reached Pattaya by 12 noon. We had lunch and started off to visit the Noong nooch village. It had a cute pottery garden, an orchid garden, Thai cultural dance, Thai boxing, Elephant show and stuff like that. We roamed in that till evening and got back to the hotel. We took some rest and then left for a cabaret show called Alcazar show there. It was marvelous. Thai dancers put up a spectacular show. Rich costumes, lot of lighting made the show very very memorable.
We got back exhausted and crashed in the hotel.

Day 2: The next morning we left for Coral Island. A speed boat dumped us there by 9am and they said the boat will start in the evening by 4pm. The island had options for scuba diving to see corals, some adventure sports like banana-boat ride, water scooter etc. It was very much like Goa but a lot more cleaner. We hired the beach-side chairs, had coconut-water and took a good amount of rest. It was hot and humid but the day was very relaxing. We left the island in the evening and got back to the hotel. We hired a 2-wheeler and happily roamed around in Pattaya. We went to a place called Mini Siam. It had miniatures of many famous monuments around the world like the Statue of Liberty, the Sphynx, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Opera House etc. etc. We roamed in that for a while, then went to the Ripley's Belive it or not museum. From there, went to the night market called Walking Street. Apparently, this market is famous for flesh trade. The girls in Thailand were extremely beautiful but it was very very sad to see them earn their living by such means. Every here and there we could see hefty foreigners hanging around with frail Thai girls. That's their way of life..We didn't realise when we got back and when it was morning and time for us to leave the hotel.

Day 3: We checked out and proceeded towards Bangkok. The hotel here was awesome. The interior was extremely modern and I cannot stop raving about it. But, later..
We had plans to see the traditional Thai Wat Trimit etc. which houses the Golden Buddha, Emerald Buddha, reclining Buddha etc. But we were late so missed it all. We decided to take some rest till evening. In the evening, we went for shopping to the MBK Market, Siam mall etc. by their sky-train. People would not believe if we say that we did not buy ANYTHING AT ALL. We roamed in the mall for about 3-4 hours and got tired and got back and slept.

Day 4: We had booked a trip to the Safari World there. It was a full-day trip. It had Orangutan show, sea-lion show, cowboy stunt show, dolphin show, bird show, spy-war show and a zoo and a crocodile farm etc. The whole day was quite enjoyable. We did a Jungle Safari also. From there, we directly went to a dinner cruise. It was supposed to be very romantic with candle-light dinner and stuff. We were feeling a bit out-of-place. But we got bored and the speed of the ship was, I think, 1 Km/hr :D.. There was Thai dance and English music on the ship. People seemed to be enjoying the candle-light dinner. We got so bored that we chucked the dinner and stood on the deck for a while. That was the only nice part of the cruise. We understood its not for practical people like us, its more for the mushy romantics at heart. Again, back to hotel and crash.

Day 5: We woke up early in the morning by 5am and left for the Damnuen-Saduak Floating market. This is a Thai village completely on water. Their houses are on water. And they sell fruits, vegetables, clothes, hats etc. on water. It was very nice. They took us on a long-tailed boat and we saw the enire market. From there, we left to the Bangkok airport, reached home by half past midnight and slept away to glory.


In the whole trip, the only trouble for us was food and language. I had to wonder if this whole country would perish the day fish become extinct. Every food of theirs had something to do with fish or oyster or duck et.al. We somehow survived on salads and thanks to a few Indian restaurants. Non-vegetarians would have had a blast. As for language, the only language that we could use was sign language. Surprisingly, people hardly spoke English. Everything was in the form of signs aided by some sounds like ah, aha, then shaking head vigorously for na. It was hilarious at times. Whatever you say in English, the reply was always the same - a wide grin with foolishness writ all over :D

The other thing that I must mention is the girls there. I couldn't help but be envious. They were so good-looking, had such flawless skin, such perfect weight :( :(.. Its paradise for bachelors.

Thailand is supposedly famous for shopping. I saw Indians buying things by cart-loads like there was no tomorrow. We did visit the most famous malls there but could not find a single thing worth buying. Surely, some thing's wrong with us 'cause so many people can't be wrong.

In all, this was quite a hectic sight-seeing trip, not a relaxing one.. :)Hope to have a rejuvenating trip next time...