If you are a frequent flyer or have been in an airplane in the last few years, you may have looked at the Skymall magazine. Every time I fly I grab the magazine first to see what’s new. There is a lot of exciting and very innovative stuff advertised in it. I call it the magazine of creative people. But this time it was different. I noticed a pattern in the variety of products that are being offered. There are so many products which make simple day today tasks mechanical or electronic – in other words they make us lazy! I had this instant flash of characters from Wall-E where future generation has weak legs and can’t even walk. The movie portrays how the human race became dependant on robotic devices for basic tasks in our life. If there is anything to learn from the movie it is that there are a lot of mundane things which we do and should be doing to keep ourselves active. I also remembered my grand parents telling my parents how their generation was more hard-working and then I hear my parents telling me the same thing. So are we becoming lazier generation by generation? Definitely the electronic age has dawned upon us and has changed the human life – how we do things, types of medical issues we have, how fitness centers are blooming every day! Now I am wondering where am I taking this – I have no complaints about the Skymall magazine because that’s their business. How we live our life is our business – the choices we make and what lifestyle we choose. Human brain is creative enough to think of ways to make life easy – just remember the cost!
My country my pride
It started as a dinner conversation with my colleagues. We were discussing how horrible the traffic is in Cairo. That’s when I told them about traffic in Delhi. One thing I have learnt in my globe trotting is that if you can drive in Delhi you can drive anywhere. And that would apply to most other Indian cities as well. We have mastered the technique to occupy every square inch of the road. The traffic pattern is no longer linear – just think of any geometrical figure and you would find that there. However our conversation did not stay on traffic. It got interesting when we started talking about how over a billion people live my country which is about the size of Texas and some neighboring states. How’s life in India? That’s when I started telling them about India. We are a service oriented country and there is a fee for every service. Well you have to understand the cost of time and that’s when you will appreciate this fees. It would normally take couple of months to get your passport but the guy standing outside the passport office can get it faster for a nominal fee. You can probably get away with a traffic violation for a fee. You can get some legal documentation sitting at home again for a fee. There is a fee for everything. This is the system but then I thought – India works, this system works! We may not have the highest standards of operations but work gets done – probably faster than most developed countries. Yes again there is a fee! Which other country has a billion people and a system which is this efficient? Believe me, I am not a supporter of such practices but I am proud of my country – every aspect of it. Even with a low literacy rate and high poverty we are still one of the strongest economies in the world. There has to be something that keeps it going, whatever mechanism is that – it works!
You may be thinking everything that’s happening in my country is correct. Not really because every house has a good and a bad and so does India. There are people fighting against corruption, people protecting women’s rights, people helping small children and people helping other people. Remember those people. There are things that need to be fixed but think about it – we all live in a complicated social-religious-political-economic web – and it still works!
PS: My colleagues left with a good impression about India and a desire to visit it sometime.
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Dastak do is darwaaze par
Dekho andar kaun rehta hai,
Lakhon dhadkane tumhe sunayee dengi
Kuchh muskurahate bhi dikhayi dengi,
Ek kone mein hogi yaroon ki mehfil
To doosre mein parivaron ki jamghat
Apnepan ka samandar jaise behta hai.
Sanskaar aur prathayein ab bhi hain kayam
Vishwaas har insaan ki hai ummeed,
Takrar thodi si hain deewaaron main
Fir bhi pyaar hai parivaron mein.
Bacchon ki kilkariyan hain goonj rahi
Aane wale sapnon ki jhalak dikhlati hamen,
Ujjwal Bhavishya ki kirnen jagmagati hai
Hazaron ummeedon ki kahanian sunaati hamen,
Shan Shan mein suno to sangeet behta hai,
Phir jhaank kar dekho andar
Yahan aur koi Nahi par mera desh rehta hai,
Sun lo mere yaron
Aisa ab kavi kanchan kehta hai.
@kanchan
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daras 