Saturday, May 27, 2006

THE WALL remixed

PINK FLOYD WORDS remixed ...

We don't need no reservations
We don't need no caste control.
No dark sarcasm in the classroom.
Leaders leave the kids alone.
Hey, leaders leave the kids alone!
All in all you're just another prick in the (Parliament) Hall

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Reservations about reservations...

The UPA government is going ahead with the proposed reservations.As in a previous post...they don't really care about us ( copyright MJ). No matter how much we scream and shout it won't be of much use I guess. As I think about it,the words a friend had put up on his orkut page come to my mind. Here they are courtesy Alistair Maclean via Pratik Gupta.

Beyond anger lies fury, the heedless, ungovernable rage of the berserker, and beyond that again, a long, long step beyond the boundary of madness, lies the region of cold and utterly uncaring indifference.
When a man enters that region, as few ever do, he is no longer himself, he is a man beside himself, a man without all his normal codes and standards of feeling and thought and emotions, a man for whom words like fear and danger and suffering are words that belong to another world and whose meaning he no longer can comprehend.

Alistair MacLean.

Are we there yet...I don't know...but we surely are getting there. That is what this country and its leaders need to guard against. Youngster after disgruntled youngster,who could have done so much,should not be leaving the country for not just greener but fairer pastures.

The more I think about the current fracas the more it reminds me of the situation of Atlas Shrugged,where driven by the unfair and unjust Directive 289 John Galt and the men of the mind go on a strike. If the most promising and productive people of the country suddenly decide that they will not contribute in any way to the prosperity of that country...it will be hell on earth. That is what this thing is doing to me.

Why should I contribute to the well being of a nation that will take the product of my work and distribute it to those who claim their right to it by their sheer inability to achieve it on their own?
Why should achieving something be made increasingly difficult for some and increasingly easier for others?
It is only when their crutches are taken away that they will know they can run too.

You cannot catch enough fish to feed them all everyday,so you might as well teach them to fish.
I am not against helping anyone to be as well equipped to face life(or exams in this case) as they can but then once you are at an examination there should be no reservations.
This is nothing unnatural...in fact it is the first and foremost of Nature's Laws:
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST.
And Newton's Law tells us what will happen if we do not heed this law of Nature.
EVERY ACTION HAS AN EQUAL AND OPPOSITE REACTION.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Wish you were here...

The night of May 19th brought with it the news that I had been selected for M Tech in Communications at IIT Bombay with Teaching Assistanship. I was elated...had I been a footballer I would have come up with some novel celebration like a toss of my graduating hat.
The question of to B or not to B was solved once and for all and it had an affirmative answer.

But there seems to be a sense of incompleteness...one that Godel for all his skill would not be able to describe using mathematics. Only ONE person in the entire world could sense this and have the sense to talk to me about it.

I have always found it tough to express my emotions and this is why I have to take recourse to the lyrics of a little known Bangalore based fusion rock(or whatever!) band called Antaragni. They say everything I have to say about this one thing that I do not talk about(except to very few people).

Had heard them at Mood Indigo 2003 and liked their music and this song in particular.
The song itself is well made and sounds much better when heard than just reading the lyrics.

Here I present those lyrics which are so close to my heart:

Dark clouds gather in the sky
and the wind is blowing across the land
evening birds hurry back to their homes
but I bend down to tie my shoes
...because I've got to go

Words you said occur in my ears
and I try so hard to hold back my tears
but I still go on and on
across the mountains of memories
Wish you were here.

I wait with my eyes open for a sound
its down on me but then you were gone
but I still carry on
across the mountains of memories
Wish you were here

Monday, May 15, 2006

Caste away

With all this talk of reservations and the predicted and perfectly appropriate brain drain...I am left thinking that my status in this country and its state of affairs is that of a Caste-away.
As I watched in horror the future doctors of the country,people my age, getting brutally thrashed I got the distinct feeling that I and people like me did not matter anymore. We form the minority I guess, but then we are not a religious minority, are we?
I debated with myself,and later with a friend whether the President could have done something about it...he could have returned the Bill(as far as I remember Civics...he can).
Even a year ago,I was horrified to find that while my AIR 194 would not get me IITM Communication M Tech...AIR 2000 odd could...he has an extra piece of paper (called the caste certificate) you see.

The TV showed pictures of the youth in Bangalore on the streets...and just for a moment a placard caught my eye:
" WE DREAM...WE WORK...THEY GET IT BY BIRTH"...well said my friend.

I guess the machinery is already rolling...the Constitution has been amended...and there is very little we can do except buy some time...time to drive some sense into the heads of the politicos.
The IITs were called the Iyer Iyengar institutes of Technology...but then we had no choice...the reservations were already so high (especially in TN i guess) that to get decent engineering education you had to get into an IIT.
If this move goes through the IITs and IIMs,the islands of excellence in this unending sea of mediocrity, will drown too...an Atlantis many of us will seek and never find.
The Govt suggests raising the number of seats in the IITs..but do u have the funds to do so? It spends Rs. 1.5 lakh per student per annum...imagine what the extra load will be on the economy. And who will foot the bill...people like us,who stay here and create wealth...not grab undeserved seats and then run away.

If this Bill goes through,it will cause much anguish to my brother and infinitely many others like him.And what will I do...go away from India( after an MTech that I worked my backside off for...not worked a piece of paper for) and send US dollars to my family so that my money won't fund the education of these undeserving b#$%rds.

In one line...the upper castes need 50% reservation too...after all we are
OBC - OPPRESSED BRAHMIN CASTES.

The Beginning

This appeared in the TOI on 11th May and I thought it was very pertinent to the way our lives are.
Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle.
When the sun comes up, you better start running.
- Tom Friedman.
This blog is intended to be an expression of what i am thinking on that particular day...since I am not very creative with words it will often have other people's words ...of course for intellectual integrity the source will be acknowledged wherever known.