Down the nostalgia lane...

I sometimes wonder whether I'd have had more friends if I had studied in in a single school right from Kindergarten till high school rather than the six schools in various cities that I studied in. I had to change my schools after every couple of years as my father who worked in a bank was transferred frequently. I studied for only a single year in 4 schools.

I guess that the short time that I spent in the schools did not create strong bonds of friendship with my classmates. For the past few days I have been surfing through the alumni communities on Orkut. I was satisfied to find a community started by my classmates during my one year sojourn at Pune during which I was in the 8th standard.

Whereas I can vaguely recall the names of my friends during that year I am not sure whether they will remember me at all !

Obama in China

US president Obama's recent visit to China raises more questions than answers. His assigning of greater role to China in facilitating peace in south Asia is tantamount to offering the judge's job to the accused.

It is well known fact that China harbours malice towards India and has done every possible thing to harm India's interests. Be it gifting 50 kg of highly enriched uranium to Pakistan or unnecessarily claiming Arunachal Pradesh or setting up " string of pearls " in the Indian Ocean or taking building projects in PoK or clandestinely arming the Maoists or trying to thwart the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal ; China has always been wary of India.

It is sad that the new Nobel peace laureate has preferred to kowtow before the dragon while turning a blind eye towards China's role in proliferating nuclear weapons technology to Pakistan. Also, this champion of human rights has chosen to subtly hinted towards freedom of expression rather than sending strong signal over the carnage in Tibet.

All in all, Obama rhetoric appears to be hollow words rather than and displaying any audacity in action. On the other hand, George W. Bush was all messed and unruly in this rhetoric but his beans were in right place. Bush knew what was needed to be done and made no noise while ensuring that was done. A few of his decisions like the invasion of Iraq were based on flimsy ground cannot be defended. But he made no bones while ensuring the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal was ratified by the congress before he vacated the president's office.

His and Condoleeza Rice's contribution to taking the Indo-US relations to a higher lever cannot ever be forgotten.

About taking oath in Hindi

The news headline of today is the beating up of Abu Azmi when he was trying to take the oath as Member of Legislative Assembly. While it must be admitted that the MNS MLAs did the right thing in objecting to the oath-taking in Hindi , I must say that they overdid it. It appears that it will cost them 4 years of suspension. This will mean serious injustice to the voters who voted for them. Their leaders has promised active opposition. But any suspension will mean the voters will be deprived of their right of opposing the government through their representatives.

Within and without

I had a very disturbing experience when I was on vacation to a hill station with my family last week. We visited an ancient temple. It is a an ancient temple where five rivers originate from one point. I had been looking forward to visiting this place for a long time.  The temple is picturesque and the ambience is indeed very serene. Water flows from a stone channel within the temple. This water is very pure as it is unpolluted. 

Inside the temple there are instructions painted on various walls which informs the visitors that photography is prohibited. Almost every visitor equiped with either a digital camera or cellphone were merrily clicking snaps while ignoring the painted instructions. I tucked away my cellphone inside my waist pouch and pointed to a few people that photography was not allowed. While one elderly man put away his camera I could read the expressions on his face which betrayed his feeling that I was doing the unwarranted job of a moral police and that I was acting a spoilsport. However, the others continued to take snaps of their near and dear ones standing beside the water flowing through the mouth of the sculpture of a cow.

I felt a sudden surge of anger.  I spoke to the priest in the temple and asked him why he did not enforce the rule. He responded that people simply ignored his pleas like they had done with mine.  He appeared impotent to handle the apathy of the tourists. 

I instantly stepped out of the temple as I could take it no more.  All the tourists appeared to be plainly ignoring the no-photography instruction.  That brought one question to my mind: how often do we follow the rules when there is nobody around to police? 

Each one of us have jumped the trigger sometime or the other with a knee-jerk reaction to happenings around us ( which do not have direct bearing on us )  without looking within ourselves to find out how honest we are in expecting others to have behaved in a certain way. 

2008

Today we had an unscheduled meeting at our office with our boss. This was a coaching meeting of sorts. Boss explained the phases of individual career growth  and the roadblocks and milestones in the process.

It is my first blog on this site and I do not have enough time to  complete my entry. So, see you latter!