Bangalore on the palate 1

The entries with this title would hence be dedicated to the eat-outs and related experiences.

The first of these comes about what happened with us today. We were off to the elusive food street in Bangalore. After a quick google map lookup, we treaded on towards our destination only till we found the lovely Lalbagh lake staring towards us. We could not resist the temptation to sit beside it and enjoy nature right in the heart of Bangalore. We looked around for a parking spot and saw a place where around 10-15 bikes were parked under a no parking sign outside Lalbagh. Around four traffic policemen were having their tea and evening snacks and seemed pretty much unruffled about the bikes parked. They saw us parking our vehicle right there, but they did not budge. Then we went up to them and asked for the directions to get to Food Street. They cordially explained us the way. Having not heard them say a word about the parked vehicle, we thought it as a tacit acceptance by them about parking our vehicle at that place. After having a nice sit-out besides the lake, we came back only to discover that the same policeman who gave us directions and saw us parking our vehicle under the no parking sign issue a parking ticket! Our mistake, yes and we duly paid and took the receipt but so much for the "have you thanked the policeman" campaign by the Govt.

Then, we reached the Food Street which is pretty much a small pathway having 10-15 shops serving street food. For someone who has seen food streets in some other cities, this would not even qualify as a Food Street, but nevertheless every city has its own style.

The local delicacies on offer were miscellaneous types of Dosas rich in Ghee, Ragi rotis and Akki Rotis, Obattu and Paddu. Besides the idlis, various forms and shapes of vadas were also wasily available.

What surprised us was the presence of the Mumbai chaats and kulfis. For a traditional food street with many shops dating back to early 1960s, it was nice to see that there are varieties from outside the local flavour too.

We first leapt onto the butter-rich Pav Bhaji which lived upto the expectations. Then, we tried our hands, rather taste buds on the local version of momo-- known as Paddu. To say the least, it was "uninspiring" as Ash put it most appropriately. Next up, we cautiously moved to the Akki roti, which more than made up for the Paddu's let down. It was extremely tasty.

Then we had some badaam milk and set off towards home after enquiring about the roads. We entered a narrow ally only to find a big police jeep and yes, I had managed to get another ticket in one day, this time round for entering in the wrong way. the friendly policeman asked Rs. 400! We wondered how a poor man would afford to get out of a similar "crime". Friendly Policeman 2 came up and said that since we were students (!!), we could only pay Rs. 200 and get off. Now, thats a student offer even telecom companies would fins hard to beat. Nevertheless, Ash very correctly said that we will pay the full sum that gives us a ticket and we will not bribe whatever the amount. Hearing this, the over-friendly and "considerate" policemen backed off and another one came with his blackberry out and gave us a ticket of Rs. 100 which is the actual amount for entering from wrong side.

While we were about to set off, the Friendly policeman came to us and said, "Oh! at first I thought you were Muslims living nearby and hence I would let you go off without a fine, but you are not as your Driving Licence suggests and hence you had to pay up." Now that was an extremely innovative excuse for hiding his attempts of having tried to take a bribe from us.

After all this drama, we managed to get to our homes without any further tickets. Had I got one more, I would have mentioned my alternative career as Ticket collector (TC). :)

Shoonya

Shoonya ka charitra bada hi vichitra hain,
Arth toh hain uskaa 'nimna' par sarvatra usme sammilit hain.
Naa hi uski shuruvaat, naa koi ant hain,
Jeevan ke anant chakra ka wah ek pratibimb hain

Cricket: A reflection on my life

This article is an assessment of me by myself through the mirror of the great game of cricket. Why cricket?? Because that's one game I love and more importantly, the only one game I can claim to be good at (Comparison reference: my neglect and hence (in)ability in all games/sports bar cricket). I remember (or atleast I am reminded by my parents), that one of the first things I learnt to speak and enact was how a four or a six is signalled. And from then on, my enthusiasm for the sport has only grown. Not to forget, I have been caught doing a fiersome bowling action without a ball or playing a copybook cover drive with my imaginary bat countless number of times.

Before I came to Goa, the only place I played cricket was on the terrace of our home in Indore, with a plastic ball worth Rs 2/- which we would retrieve from any part of the world, underground( from the gutters) to overground ( from others' terraces and roofs). Now, one great thing about this game is that its rules can be mended to suit any Indian conditions. So, we had rules like declaring a person out when the ball went down the terrace as not many people were grateful enough to throw the ball when we shouted from the terrace, making innocent looking faces at them and requesting them to throw back the ball, and then we had to go down to get it ourself. Such useless usage of effort required stern punishment and hence, hitting the ball out of the terrace was the most menacing way of getting others out. The game has various Indianised versions, suited to meet constraints of space and abilities. So, if you can't bowl overarm, you can bowl an underarm. And when you wanted to finish a game fast, you had rules like 'one tip-one hand' etc.

When I came to Goa, we had a huge football ground in our colony, lush green with well maintained Australian grass. So, we made the best possible use of it-we played cricket there! There were few guys of my age who could spare time out of their tuitions every evening for a game of cricket, but I couldn't live without it. So, I started playing with the elder guys, all college going guys ready to spend their field playing and smoking. Most of these guys were great to me and they encouraged me a lot. So my craze grew. Then, in sixth standard came a great opportunity. Our school made a cricket team, the actual cricket I mean, with the leather ball and all. And I made my way to the top of the batting line up through the sheer hard work of me being able to come in the evening for the practice regularly and more importantly, because of the lack of players! that started another innings in my love for the game. Soon, many pairs of socks were sacrificed in my home garden to hang a leather ball ( or the cheaper cork ball) in it, suspending it using a nylon thread from the Cable TV wire that went to our neighbour's house. A new SG bat was bought and from then on, the only indication that Pranay was in the colony was that of the echoing sound of the ball hitting the bat at any point of the day. Not to mention, the vertical motion of the ball caused interference to the cable TV reception of our neighbors, but they soon learned to cope up with it!

Now, I was made the opening batsman of the school cricket team, mostly because all this practice had given me a rather good technique. Moreover, with my inability to force the pace of the game, no other position would have suited me either (I always found it easy to hit the swinging fast ball than the spinning slow ball). Then, we had some inter-school tournaments, at which we had an average record. I mostly gave solid starts, a rather euphemistic way of saying a slow and boring start, with lots of technique and a lot less runs). I was once offered to join the Goa under 16 camp. But we rejected it as the place was too far and anyways cricket was a hobby but not a career path. Anyways, then I had an unsuccessful stint as the school cricket team captain, something that makes me realise of my inability to lead people effectively.

Then, I entered college and the college cricket team. This time because we had 50 over games and they needed someone who could play that long. My docile and 'correct' technique almost suited the portfolio and hence here I was, opening for my college team as well. I still feared the ball though, more in fielding. I had bad dreams of me dropping simple high catches and catching the flat ones with a heroic dive through days and nights. This fear was not there with the hard tennis ball though as years of socializing with it and our Australian grass ground had made me love fielding. I always was on the lookout of a dive or a slide, to make a rather easy stop or catch appear flamboyant! Even now, though I have overcome most of my worst fears, my habit to dive on mud, stone or grass continues to leave MF Hussain designs on my knees and elbows.

Representing the college team was a great honor for me, one way to prove in college that I was not only a maggu but had some other facets to my persona as well. So I went on, playing with enthusiasm and regularity, though with little improvisation and effectiveness. That's something about my life, I have been enthusiastic about things I have done, but for some reason have rarely been up to my expectations at it. Playing for the college team, I made some good thirties and twenties, but never a big one, as after a good start, I always tended to relax, waiting for a drinks break or for the over to end and that led to a lapse in concentration and I got out. This taught me that success was about perseverance, about continuing till the very end, about relentless concentration. My inability made me dejected, but I was not going to give up that easily my love for the game. So, I continued with my slow and technically correct batting. I was always one of the best in the nets but never the best in the match, as there, the criteria was not about blocking, but scoring runs.

After college, the game found me again in our company, and I was at it again, as the opener for my Company team now. But here they play only 20-25 overs. The need was more of attacking rather than my style of play. This required a change in attitude, improvisation and skill addition, stepping out of your comfort zone(quite literally, while charging down to a spinner). These are again a few lessons I have learnt out of cricket. Relying on your past laurels is not enough in any field. One needs to constantly try and get better, take that extra risk and that bigger challenge to achieve something great. I continued to fail.. but now I am trying to improvise and take the risks. Its tough to remove cricket from life. Now, I did not do anything amounting to cricketing greatness, but I sincerely wish to imbibe some these noble thoughts in my cricket and in my life!

We, the people; We, the India!

In the aftermath of the Mumbai Terror strikes, a lot of people have said much, claimed lots and done very little. Well, now it my chance to do the same.

There is a lot of public outrage on display, particularly against the political establishment's failure to avoid attacks of this scale. In a larger sense, this incident has displayed how much the common man has lost faith in the Indian polity. The politicians have been squarely blamed for their inability to work for the people of their nation. What I want to know is, what has lead to this feeling of disconnect between the electorate and the elected. Why do we hate the politicians so much? Why do we allow the people whom we consider the most inept and venomous creatures to rule us? And what is the solution to the present stalemate?

In the wake of the attack protests, people have come out on the streets expressing solidarity and demanding action. This togetherness in the face of disaster offers a slight glimmer of hope. News channels have shown endless talk shows where the rich and the famous(infamous) blab about the incompetency of our leaders. They have, in the rush of the moment expressed horrendous ideas such as stop voting, stop paying taxes etc. as a means to show protest.

This precisely brings us to the problem's root cause. A nation's polity is only a reflection of its people's mindset. All those intelligent "professionals" who claim that everyone in the government is a fool forget that it is they who have allowed such people to come to power, by not expressing their right and duty to vote. That reminds me of these words by the noted political commentator, Cho N Ramaswamy, who said and I quote
"There would have been greater discipline if he, instead of Nehru, had become the PM. After Independence, we lost sight of our duties and started remembering only our rights. With the Sardar at the helm of affairs, we would have been constantly reminded of our duties and it would have given character to the nation."
To debate over what would have happened if Sardar would have been our PM is a separate matter altogether. But these words clearly specify how we claim our rights vehemently and decline to perform any sort of fundamental duties to our nation. There are numerous Human Right Organisations, but no Human Duties organisations. And amongst our duties , foremost is to vote and elect our own commanders instead of just mocking at their incapability and showing off our own intellectual superiority over them. This reminds me of the elegant analogy that Sociologist Talcott Parsons drew between voting and a bank. Here it goes :
"Political support should be conceived of as a generalized grant of power which, if it leads to electoral success puts the elected leader in a position analogous to that of a banker. Just as money is deposited in a bank, members of a society deposit power in political leaders. Just as the depositor can withdraw his money from the bank, so the electorate can withdraw its grant of power from the political leaders in the next election. In this sense, power resides in the electorate as a whole."

In the absence of the electorate taking part in this process, we are led to what Sociologist Robert Michels called Iron Law of Oligarchy which means that power ultimately resides in a few hands even in a democracy. This is exactly what has happened in India. The elite, educated consider politics too dirty and useless a muddle to put their hand in and hence a new political class has emerged that by wooing the uneducated is able to retain power election after election. Recently, Mr. Kumaraswamy, former CM of Karnataka, conducted a party meeting right in the heart of Bangalore causing enormous inconvenience to the commuters. The jam continued for a marathon 5 hours. And even after that, Mr. Kumaraswamy was bold enough to say "Bangaloreans need not be so angry, they anyways do not vote". This adequately shows how the political class is unmindful of the educated, professional working class, for which only we are to blame.

The recent efforts by Tata Tea, called jaagore is a wonderful initiative. It makes all the information related to your voting available at your fingertips. Then, there are parties like Jaago Party, which have been formed by professionals who were bold enough to sacrifice their cozy lives to take on the challenge of the nation's reform.

Even after these attempts, if we don't wake up, then we don't deserve anything better than what happened in Mumbai on 26/11.

Jaago Voter Jaago!!

The election scene in India is hotting up with 6 state elections due in a few months and the Lok Sabha general elections in mid-next year. Elections are the only mode through which we can exercise our will on the government and shape its policies. However, most of us do not vote, primarily due to two reasons:

1. Absence of our names in electoral rolls of the constituency of present residence.

This might be either because we have never registered or because we have been

registered in some other constituency of India. In both these cases, we can get

ourselves registered on the roll of constituency of present residence by filling up form

6. This in turn removes us from the electoral roll of the earlier constituency if our

names are present on it. The form is available online on Election Commission of

India's website.

2. We do not have a Electors Photo Identity Card (EPIC)

This card can be obtained by availing of the several EPIC campaigns held by

government or by simply visiting the election office of the respective constituency to

complete the formalities of obtaining the EPIC.

For other such doubts, visit this link: http://www.eci.gov.in/faq/Elecroll.asp This is the Election Commission of India website's FAQ section on electoral rolls.

Lets vote this year besides criticizing the government and its policies.

RTI Act

As you would know, the Right To Information Act is a very powerful means to ensure a non-corrupt and vigilant governance. However, there is very little information available on this and hence the usage of this Act is still very limited. I have just been trying to find out a resource that adequately explains how, when and where can this Act be put to good effect and solve our grievances in an non corrupt and timely manner.

I found this site www.rtiindia.org very useful. This site is an excellent resource that will tell you what the RTI Act is, what it means and there are some petitions archived too. It will help you to file a petition too through community sharing. I would request you all to have a look at this site and use RTI to your personal and societal welfare.

Why should one give the Indian Civil Services Examination??!!

Just finished with my civil services mains exam for the year 2008. And wanted to write about the experience and also try to suggest why and who should take this FOAE (Father of All Exams). A word of caution though; I am no officer or no expert on the issue. I am just an aspirant who decided this as an option last year around October, wrote the preliminary this year in May and the mains in October this year. The motivation behind this blog article is to help out people who might be considering this as an option or just have a strong zeal for making a difference to the lives of the people around them.

My motivation
Lets start off with what led me to even try this when most of my classmates had either secured admissions to top notch universities in the US or had cracked the CAT which I call the MOAE( Mother of all Exams). After my twelfth, I was sure that I had to do engineering from a good college in Electronics & Communication because it always mesmerized me. I sincerely felt that electronics has led humans to the next stage of development - from hunting to agriculture to industry and to electronics which has started the stage of mass consumerist culture. I did not know much about the subject though and hence worked pretty hard in college to learn it beyond what was required for examination sake. I think I did reasonably well at that. By the third year, the thoughts of what I would be doing next in life started haunting me. I was never a great fan of studying in the US somehow for doing masters, because of the fact that I wanted to stay back in India itself and do something, did not know what though, for the people around me (almost all of us think of this, I am sure). But still I wanted to prove myself in academics and hence took up GATE as the target. Gave GATE in the year 2007 . But my preparation was very shoddy. I just read up some fundae and believed that those would sail me through. The preparation was not short of commitment I thought, but it was in a wrong direction. I never understood till that point of time that an objective examination required a different type of preparation. (no wonder I failed miserably in JEE and gave a below par performance at AIEEE). Anyways, I gave the examination and expected a reasonably good result. The result came. Many of my classmates smashed the exam inside out. I went and checked my result only to see a rank > 1500 (I don't even remember the exact figure). That was one of the saddest days of my life. Suddenly feelings of self doubt overwhelmed me and I cried my heart out (alone of course) like a small child. When I was wetting my handkerchief with bucketful of tears, my friend Ambicaprasad came to my room. He had smashed the AIEEE and he explained to me that objective examinations required a lot of paper solving and stuff.. something I had never concentrated on. Thanks Ambica for that advice.. will always be grateful for that.

Thereafter, I kept working in my academics and lo!! I got a placement call from a company of repute in my field. It seemed to bring my self-confidence back and I was on top of the world once again. Shifted to Bangalore for work in July 2007. Work was going well, but as I still felt that I need to do something more, something that is consistent with my larger goal of trying to change the things around me. At that point of time, I felt there is still a void in my life that needs to be filled up. After exploring the internet data for various examinations-ISRO/IES/IAS etc etc, I finally converged on IAS examination. It seemed to be the most coherent with my goal and hence decided to give a shot at it.

This brings me to answering the question which is the title of this blog.

1. If you also feel that you want to do something for the people around you and try to make a difference to their lives, however local or global the effect of your actions may be, this is a good option. If you place this craving above the crave for something like a house with a swimming pool inside or sitting behing the Porsche wheel, give it a shot.

2. If you do not fear hard work, give it a shot. This exam, I believe requires immense hard work, probably more than any other exam I know of. It does not test your intelligence as much as it tests your ability to study intelligently. If someone has cracked this exam you can be pretty sure of the fact that they have displayed the following qualities in huge measures-hard work, smart work and committed work.

3. Even if you just want to expand your knowledge about India in general, give it a shot. I have experienced how, through the process of this examination, your views on social matters tends to become more balanced and practical. Your vision adds new dimensions. So the next time you think about removing reservations of all kinds and live in a perfectly meritocratic society, you would also consider the situation of the 21% below poverty line people and the millions who have no access to education before taking your stand.

4. If you feel alienated from the society- you might be having lots of money but you still feel disconnected with the people around you, when you want to do something for them but you feel powerless, when you are working well but you still find it to be meaningless, give this a shot. I do not know to what extent one can make a change to the society once he/she enters the civil services but it surely grants you the authority to take decisions that can affect many more people apart from your family members alone. You might be holding any academic degree but if you still have this feeling of alienation, give a try for this examination. We criticize the government with elan. We seem to have all the answers for the government's misdoings. Then, why not take it onto ourselves to change things instead of blabbing about our intellectual superiority while criticizing the government. The government can be only as good as its people after all!

Considering all these things, I gave the prelims in May 2008 and got through, thanks to a change in approach to objective examinations. Wrote the mains in October. Don't know what will happen next but would certainly want to keep challenging myself to crack the FOAE!