My friend, .....

 Another rambling from a self examining teenager. Not a poem. Some thoughts. 

Written sometime in 1991. 

The world around seems so strange, People's behaviour so confusing

The people who smile at you today, the kin who laugh with you today, 

Turn away their faces when you're in trouble, 

When you just want nothing but a smile from them.

Yesterday seemed so beautiful, there were friends all around to share your dreams

Laughter, we laughed together, Songs, we sang together

And you thought the whole world was meaningful, the whole life was happy

Let only troubles come, my friends would be there, I said. 

Sorry my friend, I'm sorry, coz when I talked to you today, 

I thought you had already understood my problems, and so you'd be caring as ever

But I didn't see that caring face, I couldn't see that loving smile

But rather, I saw another casual smile from your face, 

As if it came from just another friend. 

I don't want that from you, just another person to talk to

But rather I love you to be a most loving friend

A friend who will see me in and out, at times of joy and at times of woe

Coz only true friends have the power of reading each others' minds. 

I want you to be loving, I want you to be caring

Just understand me always, and I'll be glad

Coz whenever I am in trouble, or whenever I am sad

I can come to you and find a loving and helping hand. 

Please be the same 'you' always

Wherever you are or whatever you do

Do be the same "you" always to me

Then I can count on you anytime. 

My heart has lost desire to stay

Burdened with sadness I never expected to come

If I can lean myself on you, and lay down my burdened heart before you

Yes, that's what I'll cherish the most, the most. 

Oh, Death !

 This poem was written while in REC, probably in 5th Sem or 6th, when I was 19 or 20. A friend's friend passed away in a drowning accident, and this poem was penned seeing the grief of my friend. 

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The inexplicable phenomenon, 

Or is it just an illusion? 

What is real in this world? What is ultimate? 

Life and all the beauty with it

Life and all the love in it

Is it to be lost away, with all its splendour, 

Where is it going, without a trace !

What you called life yesterday

Started from nothing

And what you called death today

Is it the end, leaving nothing? 

Life in a being, it comes from nowhere

Is it from nowhere, or is it from somewhere? 

If it is from somewhere, then when life leaves its frail body abandoned, 

Does it go to the same somewhere? 

Is it a cruel paradox, or is it sweet, That

when you came to this world, you cried, everybody smiled, 

And now when you're gone, 

You smile, and every heart cries !

The life that was here among us, 

'Twas so charming, so it will not perish

It will find a sweeter place, sing a sweeter song, 

And I pray that one day I'll find you again, 

Yes, One day, I will find you again, 

Coz you're there, I am still loving you ! 

Pygmies & Giants

I saw in the newspaper, a very famous IT industry leader and author comment about the second coming of Narayana Murthy to Infosys, saying, "Infosys was hurting. Pygmies were making wise comments. With the giant back, hopefully they will mind their own business".

Maybe, I am the only one, but I am confused in so many ways by this one statement. Maybe, some of you can enlighten me. 

• Is pygmy a respectful name for the various people he is referring to? 
• If it is a respectful name, then why is he is saying that they should mind their own business? 
• If it is not respectfully called, is he insulting the pygmies? 
• Is he insulting the pygmies because his company anyway does not do any software services for the pygmies? 
• Will he change his statement when his company starts a software center in the pygmy land? 
• When he says they will mind their own business, which business does he refer to? Infosys, or any other business? 
• Is being a giant a good thing? I have read about Goliath, who was not such a great giant, and not my role model. 
• Is he saying that you are either a giant or a pygmy, but nothing in between? 
• If it is all giants in our companies, then where do we have space? 
• Why did the giant leave behind only pygmies? 

Man, I am confused ! Too much for my brain to take in. Can someone help, please !!

Poverty Standards 2011

Last year I had written a blog called SpellCheck 2010 (http://let-it-rain-now.blogspot.com/2010/08/spellcheck-2010.html) after reading an article by P. Sainath who talked about a very innovative way the government of Maharashtra adopted long ago to remove famine. They just removed the word, famine!

If you are following the recent discussion in the media about the definition of poverty line, you'll see that you are poor only if your monthly spending is below Rs.781, or rather, your daily spending is below Rs. 26. Now note that this is not just for food. This spending includes everything, including what is known as non-food essentials. Utsa Patnaik, an Economics Professor of JNU, in an article in "The Hindu" today, highlights how this money is not enough even to get the basic nutrition, leave alone the non-essentials.

I am reminded of the story of a man who was walking in the forest and saw a bulls-eye on every tree, and an arrow struck right at the bulls-eye! He was amazed! Finally, I am going to meet the world's best archer! Then he saw a little boy, with a quiver full of arrows, shooting an arrow to another tree. Before the man could reach the boy, he saw the boy running to the tree, and drawing a circle around the arrow, with the arrow as the center of the bulls-eye!

Why do we do such games of cooking numbers by creating meaningless definitions? Aren't there more obvious ways of defining who poor, or is it turning out to be very difficult? New dictionaries, new standards, new arithmetics cannot solve real hunger!

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em

India in the past few weeks has been facing an interesting dynamics created by the great leveler of modern times - Twitter and Facebook, clubbed with a very active visual media. Many in the political framework were least prepared for this kind of an 'intrusion' into their privileges. To a large extent, even those who created the mass movement called Team Anna, were also new to this stage, and were at times doing certain embarrassing performances. They were not alone in these performances, since some from the political class also gave them company in these. Overall, on this new stage, with many performers, everyone looked quite novice - the leaders on both sides, the followers, all. Like the children who are first on stage.

However, what goes undebated is that this new stage can have a positive transition into a new equilibrium for India, if all the players accept each other, especially if the existing actors accept the new actors on the stage. The government has to perhaps have special focus on the voice of the people which is becoming very active on this stage. The senior leadership also has to accept the tweeting new leadership, whose influence on a large cross section of India is very high. The question is not whether everything that gets talked on this stage is right or wrong. What is pertinent is that there are a lot of prevalent perceptions which get debated on this stage. This cannot be ignored.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em - the principle I learned in the Electronics textbook, while studying Klystron amplifiers. The emerging leadership from political classes, social sector, masses should adopt this principle, and start using the 'great leveler' as an effective tool. The technology visionaries in the administrative machinery should use data analytics tools to make sense out of this seemingly high noise on the stage. The connectors between the mainline and the social sector should dream big in effectively using analytics (speech and text, and even video) in the coming years to create the entire India as a greatly leveled stage.

All this is possible, if the leaders stop the current mud slinging, and start appreciating the fact that we are in a greatly leveled world, a highly transparent world, and then, we might as well embrace this new stage for advancements of our nation, advancement for all its people.

Jai Ho.

We worship you, Oh deadline god!

‘I don’t care how you do it, but you have to meet the deadline, coz the customer is waiting’, yells the manager, whose hands-on life was buried deep many years ago. In fact, the firm loves him, because if he is hands-on, in touch with realities, he cannot push the deadlines. The deadline god will not be pleased. Let us pour the blood of young lives which we fatten anyway through vulgar salaries, gyms and basketball courts in our campus. What else are we feeding them for, if not to offer them to the deadline god! The youngsters slog, day in day out, and they meet the deadline. Mails of appreciation flow, awards are given in the next meeting. The customer looks at this piece of _ _ _ _ (work) and is horrified. He calls the manager, only to know that the ownership has been shifted to the maintenance team!

‘Oh my God, the software is not working, and we have only four days to give it to the customer. If we don’t meet the deadline, we lose our face, we lose our reputation’. Here comes the priest of the deadline god again, the manager. ‘ Looks like the architecture is alright. But we don’t have time to fix. So let’s give a patch. That will meet the deadline. We will fix the consequences later’. So the patch comes in 4 days, and there goes the customer and the maintenances team to suffer the consequences for ever.

Looking at the crowds that support the mass movement, isn’t it silly to expect any different culture. The masses who have worshipped the deadline god always, they do not know any other god, they do not worship any other god. The god needs to be pleased, even if blood flows. The god needs to be pleased, even if the architecture strengthening needs more thought. The god needs to be pleased even if many millions have to suffer the consequences of this patchwork. But what else do we expect from the devotees!

With all due respects to all the people involved in the movement, am I the only cynic to see a parallel in the behaviour of the followers?

The gods must be crazy

Close to 20 years ago, I was part of an agitation for a 'just cause', led by a 'democratic' leader against the 'autocratic' authorities of an educational institution. The emotional frenzy, being part of a charged environment, was an experience by itself, which led us into unbelievable chaos, and when we opened our eyes to face the reality, the 'democratic leader' had more fiction than fact, the 'autocratic' authorities were not so autocratic after all, and the 'just cause' was more just to the people who led the movement. Since then, I decided I will not be part of mass movements and signature campaigns, since by design somewhere down the line they get diluted, sabotaged, and even surgically modified by other doctors without your knowledge.

For this reason, despite the presence of wonderful leaders like Kiran Bedi, Santhosh Hegde etc. in this movement, I still kept my independent thinking about the whole issue. But of course, I still respected the passion with which they were doing, since they share a common end goal with all well meaning people of India, which is to weed out corruption. So, while I did not quite approve the mass movement approach, which many a time get followed by many who cannot be the first ones to throw the proverbial stone at the sinner, I still observed with interest.

However, I was surprised at the way the Government handled the movement yesterday. I am still puzzled who went crazy. Or is it that there is a larger gameplan that the government has, only a part of which they were playing yesterday? Maybe not. Or else, why a 7 day imprisonment in the morning and a release in the evening? Why the unholy hurry in many decisions? Why the afterthoughts?

I see classic absence of leadership and effective communication by the leaders of the government. I see blindness by them in not seeing how the common man connects the various scams on one side, and Anna's movement as the only hope! Whether that is correct or not, that is the perception of the helpless masses of India, and that perception will soon become reality if not handled very carefully. It is too early to say if that reality would be the solution.

Why isn't there that boy in the government circles who is shouting that the Emperor has no clothes! Why is it there is no hurry in effective communication by the government to the masses? Why isn't the government touching the hearts of people who are tired of corruption that they will rally behind anyone who leads, without any careful look into the detailed agenda? Why is there a hard insensitivity by the leaders who are in a hurry to be more right than understanding?

Is it too difficult? Is running the government above common sense of common men like me? Or have the gods that be gone crazy!