O Valentine, Where Art Thou?

Sidin gives some tips on how to get your Valentine on his rediff column, and another-frustrated-single-male calls him idiot for wasting the time. Sakshi gives an Agony Aunt advise to a frustrated-lonely-single-guy. And eM gives a quick guide on women. Had I seen these blogs earlier I would have behaved differently than how I did. I was hooked on to TV more than blogs and got my ideas from those 'idiot box' advertisements where man-gets-a-women in 10 to 15 seconds.

• It was the close-up advertisement that initially got my attention. They showed how it is important to have full-mouth-open-to-public-laugh to get your girl interested apart from using the close-up toothpaste. I was already using close-up then, but started being conscious to open my mouth wide open while laughing , which gave me some initial attention from the people around but did not end up in any relationship. Overtime some of them got so uncomfortable that they stopped smiling at me, forget sharing those funny (poor) jokes which was our major time pass in office. I am still using close-up, but have considerably reduced the area formed out of my open mouth while laughing. For a change I am not sure whether to try Colgate or Pepsodent, those ads still show kids as if the toothpaste is not yet ready for grown up adults.
  

• I would not have had the habit of tasting mints, had it not been for the minto-fresh ad in which the coolie gets the heroin because his teeth were sparkling and breath was seductive after eating mint-o-fresh. I tried just eating it for a while, and began directing my open mouth to those girls whom I wanted as my valentine but the results were nothing positive. I have been searching for that new Mint (without poison-marijuana-etcetera) which this guy in the ad uses to seduce none other that Celina Jaitley.
  

• My hopes of getting a girl in this janam were fading when I noticed those very very sexy ads of Set-Wet hair gel. I wanted to look like the angrez guy who had white and brown hair set in umpteen directions as if he was electrocuted. I tried to empty half the tube of gel on my head to create the 'electrocution', but all I could manage was the wet look without anything sexy about it. All day in the office, people were asking if I forgot to shampoo my hair after applying oil. A fellow female colleague whom I thought had some interest in me was giggling whenever she saw me on the floor that day, particularly after I combed my hair to get the 'mafia' look! I tried those set-wet body sprays as well which came to market a little later but was of no use, this time I had no big expectations though.
  

• Then I saw that wonderful ad which was any man's dream any day. Millions of bikini clad women chasing a man wearing an underwear on a beach, all because he just used the latest deodorant from Axe. I thought I had been wasting my time with Set-Wet and immediately got one Axe. But after prolonged excessive use of it before going out (including a trip to the local market to buy fish), no woman even asked me what was the smell. Instead some of them complained to my company human resources that they are getting head aches because of the excessive smell inside the air conditioned room, so I had to stop using it. After all, your first preference is for survival then only comes the valentine.
  

• Abhishek Bachchan is a well known actor now, people say had it not been for his father it wouldn't have been possible for him. But Aamir Khan says in Tare Zameen Par that junior Bachchan became famous because he had Dyslexia. I did not think twice before buying that Motorola mobile phone which Abhishek endorsed, the ad shows how difficult was it for him to get a girl until he bought one of those phones. If his father, hard work or even Dyslexia could not help him to get a girl which the phone could, why should I think twice? But even after the phone crashed exactly one month after its warranty period was over, I could not find a girl who had a crush on me!
  

• I was getting tired of trying, valentines day was fast approaching which made me more desperate. I had made up my mind to do anything when I saw the frenchie-x underwear ad on TV, a girl resists all attempts by her boy friend to take her to bed until she saw him wearing nothing else but a frenchie-x. It looked a real cool method to me, I went and purchased one dozen frenchie-x undergarments and started wearing them right away. It was then that the real difficulty of this method struck me. As shown in the ad, I did not have an option to go in front of my/any girl wearing just the undergarment. So, I had no other option while I went near the girl but hope that she would understand that this fully dressed gentleman has worn this 'cool' thing inside. But till today girls have failed to understand, I could not do anything dangerously daring and remains single on this Valentines Day as well.

There are other advertisements of bike, car and almost-everything-under-the-sun that shows a single handsome guy finding his girl when he uses the product. I can't afford to try all of them, so I have been selecting the cheaper (pun intended) ones. What have you been trying?

Indian Politics, What is the Way Out?

Hopefully in the next decade, every Indian will have a political party representing his or her region, religion, caste, sex etcetera unless a political restructuring for consolidation happens. While everybody is aware of this as a problem with our politics, only very few is aware of a practical solution. Today's Hindu has an interesting article by Pran Chopra, which explains what does constitutional experts say about this. Here are the excerpts:

"A candidate should be declared elected to Parliament only when he has obtained the votes of at least half the people who have voted. And if no such candidate emerges in the first round of polling there should be a second and last round in which the leader and the runner-up in the first round should be the only candidates. The House chosen in this way should then choose its leader in the same way, in two rounds at most.

The government formed by him should be open to challenge but only by a challenger who has demonstrated, in the same manner, that he has the support of at least half the House.

This single reform can achieve at least three objectives. The House will always have the support of at least half the concerned voters, the government will always have the confidence of at least half the House, and candidates at both levels, knowing that one day they may need the support of at least half the voters will, even in the first round, refrain from casting their appeal on narrow and sectarian lines.

The merits of the scheme are not in doubt. The mystery is why we do not adopt it."

There have been instances when the entire politicians of the country united on a subject, increasing the salary of parliamentary members or overriding the supreme court law on the (dis)qualifications of an election candidate being some of them. Having seen on these political dramas live on the news channels, I doubt how many Indians will really find this one as mysterious as the author finds it!

The Entertainment Politics!

Should IIMs and IITs increase the reservation quota is the latest controversy! There are arguments for and against, I am with those who see this as another political gimmick to mobilise some votes during this election season. And yes, this is another decision without a foresight or ignoring it, about the long term impacts this would create on our education system; the backbone of the present 'shining' state of India Inc. The reservations for the backward classes to be ended within 10 years of independence continue to be the best tool to manipulate a voter's decision, Gandhiji must have foreseen this while he protested against its initial implementation itself! While this remains to be the hottest issue around, another political drama is being enacted by mallu filmdom. The film industry in the state had become officially political with the creation of associations for actors, directors and other technicians. But now, they seem to be playing a different ball game, to capitalise on the divisive arena created by the politicians of the state.

It is said that actor Mohanlal has more fans in the southern part of Kerala while Mammotty has more fans in Malabar area. The first movie which tried to openly take advantage of this fact was Harikrishnans, in which both heroes acted together, the film had a different climax depending on the region it was shown, the hero with more popularity in the region got the heroin! Where do the people from central Kerala belong? The Star of the Masses, Dileep would have thought about this while he came with a movie titled Kochirajav which was meant to make him more popular in central Kerala. The fact that he has played an auto driver and he hails from this part of Kerala would have added to the advantage of churning out such a film.

Usually, in mallu movies people speak the Kottayam dialect which is very close to the print language. But for sometime now there has been some changes to this! In the Mammooty starrer Rajamanikyam the hero spoke the northern mallu aka thirondoram dialect, the film became the biggest hit in the region. Mammooty then acted in another film named Bus Conductor in which he played the role of a member of minority guy from Malabar, the film was well received in the region. And in the latest movie Thuruppugulan Mammooty speaks the central Kerala aka Cochin dialect, with that he almost covered the entire Kerala!

Mohanlal has already tried playing the role of a Muslim guy in Kilichundan Mambazham speaking Malabar dialect, but the film was not well received with the audience. I am not sure about his forth coming films, but it seems like the trend will continue. The fact that heroes like Jayaram and Suresh Gopi who continued with their tried and tested formulae are struggling to give a hit film, also makes this the perfect alternative. I am wondering when will be the time these heroes will start speaking in a gulf-returned-mallu or a US-returned-mallu accent? For long, the Mallus have been happy judging the politicians to find out who is a better actor, the time have come for them to name the actor who is a better politician!

Surprisingly SBI

The boom in the indian economy has made me an investor in stocks. My portfolio includes stocks of State Bank of India. I have read about the vast expansion plans of the bank and have been impressed by the new "surprisingly SBI" series of advertisements they have been using for a brand make over. The advertisements aim to create awareness that despite all the competition from private sector banks it is SBI that is numero uno. After an attempt to open a PPF account today, which is allowed only in a public sector bank, I have come to know the employees of SBI take this change very seriously.

The story goes thus:

We four from my company set out for opening a PPF account which would help us to save some tax, the destination being the SBI branch in Cyber Towers, Hitech City. We had taken with us the address/identity proofs and PAN card that are required to open a PPF account as per the government rules. We reached the bank and went inside, to my amazement the infrastructure looked world class and at par with any other private bank. But inside the bank we could find only to three officers seated and many of the seats were empty. We asked one of them that we have come to open a PPF account, and the reply was nothing one could think in the wildest of imaginations. She said "There are not enough passbooks available" and started doing her work. For sure I was surprised, but thought she must have some grudge towards the guys there at PPF that she gave such a silly answer. We approached another guy who was well dressed and even wore a tie (I am not sure if he intended to surprise the customers who thought they wear ties only if employed by private banks). But his reply was far more surprising "We do not have enough staff to do this, already some fifty PPF applications are pending here". We have got money that we are ready to invest, (for which a private bank would send a hundred executives to you), but these people are telling that they do not have enough staff and passbook. What the hell do we do? We sort of begged to the guy-with-the-tie and the reply was "You can check with State Bank of Hyderabad in the next room".

The infrastructure at SBH looked great. The lady at the first desk whom we approached asked "Do any of you have an account here?" None of us had one. "You should find out somebody who has account here to introduce you, the Reserve Bank of India is very strict now-a-days on this rule." But we do not know anyone, none of us are locals. "Then you can check with SBI in the next room". What?!

We then looked up the name boards inside the building to find out other nationalized banks. Only Punjab National Bank and Bank of India were there. My friend told his brother had a PPF account with PNB. We went there, but the guy told "We do not have PPF accounts, you can go to SBI". And the reply at Bank of India was same, though I am not sure if it is a nationalized bank. We then tried Madhapur Post Office and SBI branch at Jubilee Hills but was of no use. After two hours of toing and froing between banks and post offices unsuccessfully we decided to give up.

I have now become doubtful about the validity of the statement "elephants can dance" that they use to indicate that SBI can still perform well in the stock market. I had bought the shares for long term investment but am doubtful now of keeping them for long. I believe it would be illegal if I provide the passbook and staff for the SBI even if I can, so I will put my money in any of the other tax benefit schemes that are less surprising.

Thought for The DAY

Ella Nayinte Monum Oru Divasam Undu!

Yesterday was world Aids day. I have always wondered who decides that so-and-so date can be celebrated as so-and-so day, that today will be X's day and tomorrow will be Y's day. Every day is different and unique for every individual, you celebrate your birthday, birthdays of your relatives and close friends, marriage day etc and mourn the death days of your loved ones. Apart from that, people of a state, nation or religion or locality collectively celebrate special days, which would usually have a well-known history for the day being celebrated as so-and-so day. As a school child, I have come across many Children's Days and Gandhi Jayantis which were holidays. I was taught that these were birth or death dates of some of the famous national leaders. I could assimilate the logic then, for I knew that those people were really great to be honored like that. (As primary school child I was not taught history then, but only knew the name of these leaders).

But as I grew up, I came across so many other days for which I could not find out the reason behind the celebration. As youngster I came to know about Valentine's Day, Lover's Day, Father's Day, Mother's Day etc. I could not understand why one would love one's mother more on a day of the year if everybody else is doing so, I do not think people who were brought up in traditional Indian culture can assimilate the idea. But there are always people who are benefited and would like to promote the event, the media and Card companies being some. Extremist mindset towards these celebrations has lead to violent protests where people celebrating Valentine's Day have been harassed. I find many of these days stupid enough to ignore, but I cannot agree to these violent protests for it is one's wish if he/she would like to celebrate a day or not and no body else has a say in it unless it creates some disruption to their daily life.

I still find Mallus the most orthodox community among Indians. But even in Kerala, media houses like Malayala Manorama and Asianet have been trying to inculcate this habit of celebrating the days. They have been widely trying to market these days particularly among youth, through various varieties of promotions. And this has resulted in the present generation being more interested in this celebration culture, though they may not know why this day is selected for a particular celebration. I also belong to this group.

Apart from these two, there is a third type of day celebration that is becoming popular, which is generally aimed to create awareness among people about anything be it about Aids or environmental hazards. The World Aids Day belongs to this type. Whole world celebrated the World Aids Day, but I doubt how many know why December 1st was selected for the same. I wonder how many would be interested in finding this out (I for one, would not like to). But there was huge celebrations going on everywhere, every channel modified their icons to add that twisted red tag to them and competed in bringing home the best movie based on Aids to home. Music channels competed in telecasting the best music concerts held world wide, to create awareness about Aids prevention. I was watching one of these shows, where all the celebrations were happening in typical Bollywood style with men and women were performing on stage with barely any dress worn. I could not really get how this was going to increase the awareness about Aids, but I found this more as a promotion to the culture which spreads Aids. Nobody can be blamed, because there is no hard and fast rule on how to celebrate Aids day, and no one knows why this day is selected Aids Day!

Meanwhile my own state Kerala is celebrating an anti-ragging day, to create awareness against ragging among student community. Keralites are lucky that they are able to celebrate a day on everything, good or bad, happening world wide, often accompanied by a hartal. You will find Keralites celebrating in protest of capitalist policies of American Government, Central government policy against rebels and naxalites of Nepal etc. By the vigour with which media is promoting the second type of days (e.g.: Valentine's Day and Lover's Day) and the political parties promoting the third type (e.g.: Anti-ragging day), it is not far when people will spent whole 365 days of a year on the day-celebrations rather than doing anything else.

The proverb (the first sentence) will be more true then, Every Dog Has a Day!

Sensor the sensual surveys.

Yuk! That’s what I felt while going through this week's edition of Outlook and India Today. It’s quite sometime since these journals have endorsed the art of surveying to increase their circulation. And the subjects selected had been as sensational as they could make it, those related to sex and city being the most preferred. But this week's editions are the most vulgar of them all. India today has created some survey questions while Outlook has printed pictures akin to those which would be seen on a porn magazine.

I do not believe in the conclusions of any of these surveys, I doubt if too many people take it seriously. But the magazines have made it a habit to conduct surveys on subjects varying from sexology to technology and print them with large pictorial illustrations on maximum pages of an issue, leaving not many pages for news and articles. No body except these magazines can vouch for the authenticity of these surveys, though the results give an impression that these are largely conducted in metros. But then, they need some unorthodox opinions to make it interesting for the readers, opinions which may not always be obtained by actually conducting the survey. So you can't guess what is actually happening behind the scenes.

One thing is for sure, whether you as a person like it or not, these magazines are going to roll-out too many issues on related subjects in the past also, because “they do not running a charity organization” to ignore the increase in circulation by to these surveys and the related content they print. We need to have some sort of censoring mechanism to decide what can and cannot be printed on these journals. Introducing a rating mechanism for these magazines based on their content can also be considered, like how we do for the films currently. Otherwise it would not be long, when these so called journals would roll-out with surveys on subjects you wouldn't have dreamt in your wildest imaginations with contents that would give a stiff competition to porn magazines, I doubt if that is already happening. Also in place should be an authority to check and validate the methodology of conducting these surveys and conclusion of the final results.

9/11, 7/11, 7/22...!?

The 'War on Terrorism' is paying off. But who is benefited?

United States of America has always tried its acts of global policing at anywhere it gets a foothold. At the pretext of global peace, they have helped militant groups across the globe to implement their selfish interests as a nation. Consider any of the world’s problematic places, Palestine, Kashmir, Afghanistan or elsewhere, Americans were there either to create the problem, or to worsen it by helping one of the clashing groups which they think will give them some benefit. But eventually, all of these issues have blown out of control, and that is when they finally try to act as peace makers!. Its like, create an issue and then find ( or pretend like trying ) a solution to it! This can be largely attributed to the lack-of-enough-problems-to-solve within the country itself! They had to pay the price for this when the 9/11 attacks on World Trade Centers happened. Ordinary American citizens, who have only heard about the people getting killed elsewhere, probably by the American marines, should have had a real shock experiencing the same. President Bush declared it as attack on world peace and launched "the war on terror"!So far so good! Then the biggest mistake happened, not by US or 'terrorists", but by the nations which decided to join the war on terror.

What really happened was a change in the battlefield, and not a new war as such! The so called terrorists, who were once trained by America for their own advantage (read Osama bin Laden), decided to take the war to the land of US from elsewhere. But US succeeded in making the rest of the world believe otherwise, that it is a war to be fought by all of them. They could also get other nations' troops to Afghanistan and Iraq, even when the United Nations was against all this! And then follows 07/07 and 07/22 series of blasts in London, the capital city of the major ally of US in the war on terror.

The response to the incident has been variant, the British government, as expected, denied that war on terror has anything to do with it. But I, like most of the people with common sense, would like to strongly disagree. Particularly after knowing the whereabouts of the suicide bombers. The bombers, obviously Muslims, were not from any Arabic country but were immigrants whose parents settled in Britain several years ago. So these youth were born and brought up in Britain, studied in institutions of that country and were "nice-to-live-with" guys to their neighbours. Why do they decided to kill themselves, and take many others along with them? Does they do not have any love for the nation or the people who gave them shelter? And how did they, having educated from the best institutions in the world, become prey of islamic extremism? Or how did the so called terrorists manage to persuade these young and well educated people to become suicide bombers?

I think the war on terror made it happen, it made the job of terrorists easier on convincing people. The very cause in this case being the joining of British army in Iraq for "restoring peace". I read in yesterday's newspaper that the death toll of Iraqis has gone up to 24860, which is far bigger than the numbers 4000 at WTC or 100 in London. Then there is the abusing of prisoners, abuse of Koran, and so many other stories that can be used to "motivate" these guys to challenge "their" nation. Had Britain had not joined the war on terror, it would have been difficult though not impossible. It would have been difficult to create a justifiable picture so as to persuade these well educated youths to do this brutal act. Because the Koran or prophet condemns suicide and on jihad, When a man asked "What kind of jihad is better?" the Prophet had replied "A word of truth spoken in front of an oppressive ruler."

Now, as I write this, there is widespread fear among the Asian-looking community in Britain about alienation and racism due to these attacks. And the British government is worried that this can create further disturbances!

So finally who have won, and is the war on terror a success?. Answer depends on who answers it, whether the nation which launched it or the "terrorists" whom it targeted!


P.S: The answer also depends on what is the actual intention of US is, for which it is using war on terror, and which me, the poor chap, does not know at this moment. I think like me, all the "poor" chaps will have to wait and watch! Then, there is this saying by Martin Niemoller which makes me afraid, especially when my mother country is the new found ally of United States of America.
"First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me"

News and Views

After leaving Kerala to pursue my career outside the state, the key link between me and the state have been the Malayalam TV channels. Operators in Hyderabad and Chennai broadcast Asianet, Surya and Kairali, though Kairali is not available with all the networks here in Hyderabad. My cable operator has stopped giving Kairali TV for last one month or so, a great disappoint for me who is not interested in the soap serials broadcasted by Asianet and Surya. So nowadays, the only program that make me glued to TV during the evenings are the news telecasts. And I try not to miss the five minute tele-strip Munshi, which discusses current affairs in a humorous way.

Yesterday's news reports were very disturbing to watch. The headlines were the Ayodhya temple attack by militants, the DYFI/SFI strike and the associated mishaps in Kerala and the resigning of 9 MLAs from state assembly who have become part of the new Indira Congress Party formed by Karunakaran and his son. All these incidents have no or little precedence but can make deep impacts on political India/Kerala.

Another strike.

The DYFI/SFI strike was rated by Munshi as the "best" which Kerala has seen to date, "better" than what they themselves had presented in the past. The news reporters must have had an experience akin to war correspondence, for the clash between police and strikers involved lots of teargas shells, water pouring tanks and petrol bombs. As usual the strikers managed to set fire or damage many Government vehicles, the notable difference this time being that police made a counter attack on AKG centre using grenades, as if they were attacking a fort of an enemy, and managed to damage some of the vehicles of communist comrades parked inside the compound.

I could never and do not think can in the future, agree to this "art" of destructive strikes (irrespective of the name they call it-Bandh or Hartal). Not that I am a follower of Gandhi model satyagraha or something, but that there are definitely better ways to express your discontent. The Communist parties always used this kind of methods to invigorate their cadres, especially youth wings such as SFI and DYFI, when they are in the opposition thuis having less opportunities to lure them on lucrative posts in government bodies. I have lost interest in finding out the very cause of these turmoil, after watching and experiencing them for years and finding that there may not be a solid reason to create these chaos other than uniting the cadres confused on intra party problems. I have got used to the vsuals of these wars shown in TV channels, the fight between police and strikers using teargas grenades and petrol bombs, the burning government vehicles, the broken glasses of vehicles parked and the buildings by the roadside and lately people being thrown away by the water sprayed by water tanks. This time so many girls were seen at the forefront of the marches, and getting injured in the clashes.

I had a hint that this strike was against the high fees charged by private professional institutions in state. The strike was called off after a meeting between state educational minister and Leftist Students Unions. The resolution based on which it was called off was stated as "decision to charge lesser fees in the government controlled co-operative colleges". I doubt if some body told "private colleges", and the entire drama reiterated the rumour that the strike was "organised" to avert the attention of masses from the intra-party clashes in CPM, popularly known as vettinirathal.

Ayodhya on fire.

The attack in Ayodhya by militants was successfully foiled by the CRPF. For me, this gave new information, that there is a make-shift temple that is being protected by a dedicated police station and a battalion of CRPF. But the true drama was yet to begin when the BJP demanded the resignation of PM and Home Minister for the mishap and declared that they are going for countrywide strikes on the issue. Narendra Modi compared it to 9/11 and BJP made it "an attack on Hindus". The Prime Minister later issued a statement such events could hamper the India-Pakistan peace talks. I am doubtful now, have the militants become successful finally? Two days after, BJP has decided to stop talking about the issue, which was an alter attempt to unite the conflicting party cadre, which has finally turned out to be a boomerang with very less people responding to the call for a hartal.

Indira Congress gets 9 ex-MLAs

At this moment, I believe majority of Keralites, like me, do not know what will be the future of Indira Congress would be? And there is not much waiting period to know, as the panchayat elections are on the cards. The same holds true for the future of nine MLAs who resigned their post and quit the Congress to join Indira Congress. Let us wait and see, and meanwhile pray for the people in the ten constituencies that do not have an MLA at present (including Cherthala from where Antony resigned to graduate to MP).

We see all the parties, irrespective of the color of their flags, taking due advantage on any incident that happens, when they are supposed to unite and condemn such threats on national security. They try to make life a hell for the people of their country when they are supposed to make them better. They play petty politics and resign their posts when they are supposed to serve the people who elected them for their good for the next five years. As I write this, Kerala is going through another strike called by all the trade unions together, one of the many hartals and strikes they ought to see this year. No, do not ask me what for this one is, for I really do not know, and as said before, am not interested in finding out! But I seriously doubt if this is what politics in democracy is?

Godspeed my polity, may God save You from these politicos!

American Elections and Kerala Rallies

I have a new colleague who joined my company recently. He was working for a world famous US firm for the last nine years before moving back to India. He is a Muslim, a very religious man, one who can be made a role model in that aspect. I was talking to him about the life and people in America, with the general curiosity of a software engineer who hasn't got an onsite chance yet. He was talking about how people in US react to presidential elections and how important it is to present himself as an "interesting and not boring" fellow for a future American president. I have read in news columns about the importance of television campaigning in US, what he told confirmed all my perceptions to be correct. He summarized people in America in general "They eat a lot of junk food, watch a lot of TV and movies and have sex. They talk most of the time either about movies, TV shows or sex." I am sure there can be disagreements with this argument, but considering the exposure this guy has had to the culture, I think this must be a true generalization!

Now, Kerala is considered to be akin to US in living standards, I thought how people in Kerala behave compared to this. Naturally, it is understood that the above said behavior of Americans come from the fact that they live in an affluent country, where there is nothing much to worry about, other than the life of movie characters. But for Keralites, the idea of open sex talk and junk food are still alien as of now, though the latter is picking up very fast. I can easily say that Keralites are the most conservative community among Indians.

My observations when I went to Kerala last time included so many things. People are building up huge and posh houses and are spending money on making the old ones bigger. They are very much interested in getting best of the furniture and household items so that their house looks no-less or better compared to neighbors'. (This transformation is happening to my Sweet Home also). In most cases, this has been an impact of foreign money flow into the state from early 1990s. The gulf dirhams that come to any Muslim household in northern Malabar or the dollars that get transferred to NRI account of any Christian household in southern parts of the state, include this. This flow of money from outside has created many people in state who does not need a job to survive. In fact this has also changed the attitude of people so much so that they have become spendthrift. It is difficult now a days to identify the financial situation of an individual, especially youth, just by looking to his outfits. This is a far cry from the situation when you had customized dressing styles for a community depending on their occupation.

This mass of people who are unemployed, or who does not need a permanent job for survival, has been utilized extensively by political parties in the state. Politics in the state has become a gimmick on TV screen. The better actor you are, the better you will survive in politics. The 101 channels that try to establish themselves in the state give so much publicity for any XYZ leader of ABC party that it has become easier to be popular. It is not ethics or morals that matters, but how do you manage your screen presence. And the latest popular technique to this effect is RALLY. Every party and religious organization conduct rallies in the state in order to SHOW their strength. And almost all of them have made their rallies successful, a factor determined based on the length of the rally, the time it took to pass a certain point and the time duration for which the rally managed to block the traffic in the city. The rallies are usually organized in the major cities in the state viz Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode so that the latter of the above factors makes a bigger impact in the success of the rally. Coming back to the original subject, how these rallies are useful for the unemployed youth? As and when the number of rallies increases and when the rallies are conducted almost daily, people get tired and are no more interested in going for any of these. There comes the role of agents who recruit people for these rallies. Agents will offer these unemployed youths a sum of 250 to 500 rupees and a bottle of alcohol for participating in a rally. At the end of it, the organizers are happy because the rally was a huge success, the youth is happy because he got made some good money in two hours and the agent made some money for amassing some stupid people. The one who losses is common public, who is made to see all this drama through the channels and whose life is made difficult by blocking roads and the state which looses the working hours and the name "not fit to start an industry".

And people like me, who is migrating from state to state for a better job, because their is no job available in the state even if you are ready to compromise on your compensations, find the whole scenario as disheartening! There was a time when I felt proud when I heard a common mallu joke, that Neil Armstrong found a Malayalee Tea Shop when he went to Moon. Now, when I understand why so many Keralites have left the state to find a job elsewhere, and with the homesickness now I feel, it no more seems to be a joke to me!

Disclaimer

I was doubtful about the need of a disclaimer on this page. But, not after reading this news about an employee of Google being sacked for writing about his job and the company in his personal blog!

Mark Jen, formerly employed with Microsoft, was terminated after 11 days of employment with Google, reason being his blog named Ninetyninezeros. There are other people too who were terminated from employment because of their blogs. And the idea of blog censorship is gaining support in United States.

True! All this is happening in United States. But being employed in the Indian subsidiary of a software company which has strong ethics and policies related to the use of web, and to be on the safer side, I have decided to add a Disclaimer on this blog.

VidyaBHAsam!!

Students of India are having a tough time!

• The Class 10th SSLC examinations of Kerala State have been rescheduled due to a question paper leak. The first incident of its kind in the history of this examination conducted by State Education Board of Kerala. The new dates announced are almost one month after the original dates for the exam. Students and parents are worried that the long gap in the dates will reduce their interest to study and are apprehensive about another leak.
• Counseling centers have been opened in Andhra Pradesh, to help students who are under stress due to exams, i.e. clinics to shun examphobia!! There are also reports of students committing suicide over exam results. I have seen this type incidents happening in Kerala also.

Indian system of education which stresses too much on exams need a change. And it is the school education system that needs a big makeover. Current system, adopted from British system of education which creates degree holders, was more suitable when we had a job market which consisted mostly of government jobs and which valued the job seekers based on their degrees, irrespective of their skills to do the particular job.

Now with India becoming a job surplus market and most jobs being concentrated on sectors like IT and ITES, Biotech, BPO etc, its time we concentrate more on creating skills for these sectors. At the same time we need to reduce the stress on students by changing the examination system. I believe Kerala Government is doing something towards this, with implementation of new education approaches like DPEP and changing exam patterns with more questions to assess the child's creativity and analytical skills rather than the ability to "reproduce" the text. It may be true that there are some flaws in the initial stages, but this should be tolerated to create a refined and better system of education for future.

My education up to graduate level was done in the old system itself. I have always been in the first five positions of my class and have tried hard for this with my target always being the exams. But now, after getting employed in software industry, I find that I have been made to study loads of junk data to pass these exams. Also, I have always felt that it is important to get high marks in exams and considered this as the ultimate parameter to get a job. My government employed parents have always stressed this!

But this is not always true! At least in the present India where every graduate gets a job. One of the main struggles is to get the best ranks in professional entrance examinations so that you get admission in one of the best colleges (with the assumption that this colleges would fetch you the best jobs through campus placements). But now, every decent college in the state has a long queue of employers for campus placements, and students are "booked" one or two years prior to their completion of course! I have also seen people who have struggled a lot during their graduation, with so many "Supplis" getting better jobs than mine. So at the end of all this, it is not always the marks in your examination, but your luck that matters more! I do not mean to say that students need not study, but that they need not strain themselves much.

In this aspect, our graduation courses also need a change. We need to have more elective subjects based on new technology areas and more practicals in these courses rather than routine subjects which are boring for students as well as teacher community and just make another subject to score in exams. There is also a need to update the syllabus to include recent technology related content in these courses. I believe institutions like IITs and NITs have a course structure like this, but this need to be implemented countrywide.

It is high time that Indians become more realistic about their education system! We have to improvise this system to reduce the unnecessary stress that the students and parents go through when they hear the word "Exam"!!

Sania Mania!!

Suddenly everybody is behind her, praising, idolizing and making her a brand-ambassador or an iconoclast. Media, businessmen, sportsmen, politicians, and rest of the countrymen who identify themselves as tennis-fans are following her 24*7. Marketing managers of brands from jewellery to sports wear were on queue to make her promote their brand. Well acclaimed print media were behind her to get good snaps (obvious!) and to roll-out special Sania-edited sports supplements (ridiculous!!). There were much celebrated interviews on every TV channel, before and after matches were being played! All after the jump she could afford, within two weeks, in the world tennis rankings list. Else if you had asked these people about Sania Mirza, answer would have been an obvious "Sania, who?".

I agree, we Indians do not have enough sports icons, at least not as much to satisfy the whole of world's second largest population, who have not diversified their sports arena, other than concentrating largely on Cricket and Hockey. For sure, Sania is doing a great job, but the hype that is given to this act of confident performances are surely out of bounds. And up to what percentage can we consider this as love for the country or for the sports event?

India have had sports(wo)men who had excelled in various events of sports. We had Leander Paes and Karnam Malleshwari who won Olympics medals for the country, and Anju Boby George who raised our hopes of another one! We have grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand who has always palyed great chess for the country! Recently we got Narain Karthikeyan as India's first Formula One driver. But publicity that Sania gets is more, though her contributions are not more than any of these achievements, at least as of now. So why is that she adored by all the media and publicity managers? Marketing their brand should be the ultimate aim!


Most of this hype, in this era when consumer is "king" in this "liberalised" country, has been to find new ways of marketing through this girl who did her hard work to reach this position when nobody was around to cheer her. And rest of these new found tennis-fans, who does not own a company of their own, admire Sania not for her strong forehand shots but for her individual glamour! It is the skimpy clothes that she wears that attracts them and the media and that is the same reason why photographers queue up to get her "best" snap. If not, why is that Malleshwari or Anju or Paes or Anand do not get this wide media coverage? Why is that this many brands do not compete to make them ambassadors? It is because, when they won their laurels, they were not in "good shape" to be marketed as a youth icon or a "sex symbol" and had less fanfare.

Let us hope that Sania has the ability to distinguish milk and water! I am sure she does, at least when she told that she want to become a youth icon than a sex symbol!


Lastly, I had read a blog of Rashmi Bansal which actually made me write this one!

http://youthcurry.blogspot.com/

I think that it is the culture in which one is brought up that individual's culture. And it is relative from individual to individual! Even the definition of "fundamentalism" and "terrorism" are relative in that sense!! I doubt how much it is true when one goes on to say that the best cultured women are the least dressed!!


And there are more questions that this blog makes me ask....

• How much worse is the situation (ability to dream big) of Muslim women in India when compared to others?
• Is Sania the first India Muslim women who appear in public with so less clothing? What about those innumerous Muslim women who appeared and still appear onscreen in more "modern" outfits?
• Is Indian Muslim community so much fundamental and arrogant that they made a fuss about any Muslim women's dressing habits? And are we in a situation where rest of the world think that Muslims in India belong to the breed of so-called "terrorists" ?
• On a broader stretch, when will people stop thinking that whole of Muslim community are fundamentalists, for the acts of a minority of them?

Yeah..I can go on asking questions...But it is the answers that are important!!