Corruption - Are we on the Moral High Ground by default?

It is interesting that suddenly we are all up in arms against the govt and want to end corruption once and for all. So what do we really want here?

- To ensure all people in public office are punished for amassing unaccounted wealth.

- To ensure all people in public office are under the ambit of a civil society body so that they don't have any ways to escape a trial if they are corrupt

- To ensure all money stashed away in foreign lands is brought back to India by force

These are our main demands. So will that stop corruption? I take the liberty to have my doubts. At best this would have all people in public office scurry to cover loopholes and save themselves and get their accounting right and at worst it will give rise to a Goonda raaj again to quell the voices that are rising. I know, I know, that shouldn't scare us and it doesn't. But somewhere it is a "Cure only" process and there is no measure for prevention.

It is to be noted that most people in public life don't know another way ... and in many ways we the people have been fueling this corruption from day one. We are all at fault and an overhaul of the societal principles and individual principles (in action) is needed for a corruption free state.

Do we really have the moral high ground to stand against corruption? Are we thinking of how we ourselves should stop from being corrupt? To get this right, we need to understand what corruption really means.

Here's the definition of corrupt:

cor·rupt 

–adjective

1.guilty of dishonest practices, as bribery; lacking integrity;crooked: a corruptjudge.

2.debased in character; depraved; perverted; wicked; evil: a corrupt society.

3.made inferior byerrors or alterations, as a text.

4.infected; tainted.

5.decayed; putrid.

This being the definition, let's ask ourselves:

- Are we not guilty of dishonest practices?

• How many of us give the exact true reason when we ask for leave?
• How many of us tell the existing employer the real reason of why we are quitting?
• How many of us ensure we don't break any traffic rules? And if caught how many of us agree to pay the fine right away?

- Are we not making things inferior by errors or alterations?

• How much do we care about the quality of our work or words or actions?
• How much time do we spend being self-critics and seeing if we could have done the last task any better?
• When our work is audited at office, how many times have we prayed for an easy-going auditor instead of making sure there are no loop holes in our work?

My worry is we are trying to punish people at the surface of the society and not even thinking about solving the problem at the roots. There is some amount of corruption in the "Chalta Hai" attitude that the whole of our country is diseased by. That needs to be checked.

The society should stop being corrupt by understanding the values of Integrity and Honesty and not by the fear of punishment. Don't get me wrong, the fear of punishment should be there, but the principle driving force for the bigger picture should be the positive incentives of not being corrupt.

This is where quality education (not mere literacy or qualifications) comes into picture. This I'll keep for a later time, but what I want to say here is that while we are up in arms against the very people we have democratically elected to office, we should fix the corrupt in ourselves simultaneously and ensure that our friends, family and off -spring are also encouraged not to be corrupt in our small world of daily life and work.

Lastly and most importantly we need to understand the real meaning of dignity and know that a dignified person never asks for favors or exceptions, and if this can be adhered to, there would be no need for corruption. I know that is Utopian, but that's where we should be headed, if we are serious about a corruption-free society. Otherwise we will always be fooled by rhetoric and Babas.

Moment of Truth

It's been a long time that I sat down to blog. To be honest, I am not sure if these blogs have any effect on anyone that reads them. However, sometimes one needs to write down things that makes one sit up and take notice of a moment that just passed by. Why? Well, if not for anyone else, it is for oneself. Sometime in the future, when that moment can be used as wisdom for the then-present life.

This happened earlier today. Around afternoon, Madhu (my wife) and I were driving around the neighborhood looking at houses to get some ideas of what we would want in our house if and when we build it. I call this "Planned Dreaming". We do this often ... it makes us look forward to owning a house of our own and as needed in a matter-of-fact world, we also try and make sense of the finances and get a feeling of how and when we can get there, or if we can get there at all.

Anyways, so here we are looking at houses, and there is this house that we have driven past many a times and liked each time. So this time we both said ... lets see if we can get a look inside. So we stopped the car and walked up to the security guard posted there. We asked if we can have a look and if people are coming to stay soon or not. He said the house was for sale and we could have a look inside. Thrilled we both walked in and as expected, the house was great, and did look outside our budget - by a considerable margin, but who cares? We were there to get some ideas ... so we went looking around and liked the landscaped lawns and the large bedrooms, the plush bathrooms, the swimming pool on the terrace and the whole nine yards. It was well planned, it was a treasure trove of ideas for us.

When we were done we walked out and there was our security guard, smiling. I thought, lets find out how much it actually is ... so I asked him. And he said - "Teen" (Three). Now I kind of guessed that it was 3 crores (3,00,00,000). That was a big number for us and we knew even before seeing this house that we couldn't afford it. But the way the guy said it was strange ... it seemed that that's all he had to say - "Teen". Obviously, I needed to know exactly what it was and not just guess. So I went "Teen ... Kya?" (Three ... what?)

He looked at me with an expression that said "This is exactly what I was hoping you wouldn't ask" ... but I wouldn't let go. So I asked again ... "Teen ... Kya?". And he said "Woh Kya kehte hain na saab ... ahhh .... yaad aaya ... crore ... Teen crore". (What do they call it ... ahh ... Now I remeber ... crore ... 3 crore).

This is where I went blank for a moment ... it was some sort of a revelation ... a moment of truth. This guy is guarding a property the worth of which is of no value to him. He doesn't count beyond a certain number. He is there attending to people, he is smiling and I am sure he has his happy and dull moments in life just like all of us. And yet he is blissfully unaware of how far the number system goes. He is happy to not know what 3 crores means. He could be just as happy as I am or more, just because his life is that simple. Its amazing ... how what we are running after everyday of our life doesn't hold any value to him. To him 3 crores is an information that has some meaning for other people, for him the number of any significance with regards to this house is ONE ... the one house he is supposed to guard.

I couldn't get over how small he made 3 crores look.

Will this change my house buying plans or will this make me not expect a hike in the next appraisal? The answer is obviously No ... but I will remember this conversation throughout my life. As a realization of how little our pursuits can possibly mean.

Leopard Sighting at Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary

Yesterday we saw a leopard at Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary. Go some sort of a video ... check this out

We need a Freedom Movement

Why do the terrorists always find success? Why do we have the problems we have? Why are we shaken today by the utter inefficiency of our Govts?

 

In short it is because we have ceased to value our independence ... we as citizens don’t like "Law and Order" unless it affects us ... we don’t co-operate with security measures ... we don’t like to stand in the queue for security checks ... we don’t want to step in thru the metal detectors ... we hate the concept of traffic laws ... we don’t like lane discipline ... we don’t hesitate to litter the streets ... we are okay with paying bribe or otherwise called "tips" to get our work done... 

 

In doing all these we have compromised our professionalism and good citizenship ... the effect of this is ... we have stopped expecting professionalism in others and efficient governance ... well unless we are affected by it directly. At that time we don’t hesitate to complain and see heads roll ... We are the problem and that's why governments selected by us are so lackadaisical and callous ... and not to mention "corrupt" ... and guess what the result of that is ... The attack - despite warnings from all quarters ... and no one has answers 

 

So the point I guess I am trying to make is ... Are we going to continue to be like this? Or are we going to be the difference or the change we are expecting....

 

We need to free ourselves from this compromised sense of standard in anything we deal with ... We need a freedom movement to free ourselves from the shackles of our own inefficiency if we want to be in a country which has a government we can be proud of ... where terms like "Politics" "Police" and "Government" don’t sound like abuses.

 

Let’s join hands and be a part of a freedom movement where we pledge:

 

We won’t let us or people around us break the law

We won’t let us be divided by the vote bank political rhetoric

We won’t be swayed into violence by an inflammatory speech

We won’t consider ourselves anything else but "Indians First"

We won’t get our way by bribing any official

We won’t get our friends and children break the code of conduct of a good citizen

We won’t let IST mean "Indian Stretchable Time" it should mean "Indian Standard Time" (its real meaning in case we have forgotten that)

We will ensure we bring up our children to be good citizens and patriots

We will ensure we ask how the tax we are paying are being used

We will ensure we don’t stay quiet if we see a govt official being lackadaisical

We will love and not hate

We will contribute to the society – not only by paying taxes

We will believe in our judicial system and force improvement of it if needed

 

I am sure there are many such promises … but I want to start here … are you with me?

 

 

We Salute You

On one side most of India is paralysed and is on the verge of losing hope because we are such a vulnerable terror target. On the other hand we have committed Security Forces like the NSG, the Army, The Marine Commandos and the ATS and also people who led from the front and didnt think twice before risking their lives and sacrificing it for our safety. Should one lose hope?

Definitely not ... if we lose hope and be afraid, we would be disrespecting the sacrifices by these brave heroes. We have to stand up and get back to life ... but with a pledge to make India a better and make each Indian citizen an Indian first and then anything else ... with a pledge that we would raise a next generation to be proud of India and to have the morale to live and die for the country ... or at the least to be a good law abiding citizen.

There are many things the common man like you and me can do to improve the country and I am sure at least now a lot of us will start ... I know I will. But first lets pay homage to the brave souls who laid down their lives to save us and to those that are still fighting to ensure our safety.

We Salute You ...

Mumbai Under Siege : India Helpless

The incident was paralyzing ... I wanted to believe that all this was just a nightmare ... but as we all know it wasnt ... Why are there so many attacks? Why are we as a country nothing but a soft target to terror? Why cant we feel secure in our homeland? Why can no one feel secure on our homeland?

I think this has more faces than one. I think we need to do a lot first before we expect security. I think we as citizens need to stop being immune to these incidents ... and see what can be done to make the place we live in better ... no I am not talking about fighting the war against terror with arms and army ... while that is needed for our defense against the cross-border terrorists, we need to show the world that there is no problem within. We need to show that we Indians stand united and the home is clean and terror free ... and then say if anyone casts a terror spell on us, we will deal with that strongly. A lot needs to be fixed inside the country ... first being our nature of being compromising about infrastructural deficiencies ... but the problem runs much deeper than we can imagine and we cannot just sit and complain. We need to get involved in cleaning up the mess.

The problem to begin with is .... we dont know what level of competence we should expect from our governments, or from our public servants, policemen, postal dept or even the municipality and road contractors ... we dont know what is the reason we vote ... we dont know why we like the leader we follow, we dont know why we write exams and what we should expect after we pass that exam ... we dont know why we do the job we do ... somewhere this lack of understanding has led us to be like robots and maybe that's why we spring back to action as soon as the curfew is lifted ... as if nothing happened ... we connive at many things ... we connive at the faults of our children, parents, siblings, friends and even enemies ... we dont know what to expect or where that fault can lead us. We dont know how we should define efficiency in our life and hence we have inefficient govts and security systems. 

Now the problem of " We dont know " roots from a bigger problem of not asking "Why?" from childhood and then it becomes a way of life and we very easily resign to fate.

So where is the solution? or is there a solution?

There is but it will take a while and a lot of resilience. It will take a lifetime ... but I am sure it will be worth it. And here is where we have to do everything to unite and also parallely diminish the cause of creation of miscreants - poverty and lack of "proper"  education.

Diwali 2008

This Diwali was a little weird as the Diwali holidays were different for different people ... but somehow I managed to get the same off with my wife a day later ... and hence we spent Diwali making Rangoli ... and making the house beautiful ... and the bursting of crackers and fireworks is postponed to Sunday as that is the day the entire gang will be together ...

Here are some memories of the day ...

Paraskavedekatriaphobia - Fear of Friday the 13th

Today is Friday the 13th ... We all have heard about this day and how inauspicious this is. We had a small discussion at office and my reps wanted to know why it is unlucky ... so I resorted to Wikipedia for the answer ... what I found was good information and I thought I should share.

Here is the History:

Both the number thirteen and Friday have been considered unlucky:
In numerology, the number twelve is considered the number of completeness, as reflected in the twelve months of the year, twelve recognized signs of the zodiac, the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve Apostles of Jesus, etc., whereas the number thirteen was considered irregular, transgressing this completeness.

There is also a superstition, thought by some to derive from the Last Supper, that having thirteen people seated at a table will result in the death of one of the diners.
Friday, as the day on which Jesus Christ was crucified, has been viewed both positively and negatively among Christians. The actual day of Crucifixion was the 14th day of Nisan in the Hebrew Lunar calendar which does not correspond to "Friday" in the solar calendar of Rome. The 15th day of Nissan (beginning at Sundown) is celebration of Passover.

Despite the onus on the two separated elements, there is no evidence for a link between the two before the 19th century. The earliest known reference in English occurs in a 1869 biography of Gioachino Rossini:
[Rossini] was surrounded to the last by admiring and affectionate friends; and if it be true that, like so many other Italians, he regarded Friday as an unlucky day, and thirteen as an unlucky number, it is remarkable that on Friday, the 13th of November, he died.

However, only in the 20th century did the superstition receive greater audience, as
Friday the 13th doesn't even merit a mention in E. Cobham Brewer's voluminous 1898 edition of the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, though one does find entries for "Friday, an Unlucky Day" and "Thirteen Unlucky." When the date of ill fate finally does make an appearance in later editions of the text, it is without extravagant claims as to the superstition's historicity or longevity.

Though the superstition developed relatively recently, much older origins are often claimed for it, most notably in the novel The Da Vinci Code (and later the film), which traced the belief to the arrest of the Knights Templar on Friday October 13, 1307.
----

As if this stupidity wasn’t enough … here are some facts that might astound you and open your mind to how destructive Superstition can be. Read on:

According to the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina, an estimated 17 to 21 million people in the United States are affected by a fear of this day. Some people are so paralyzed by fear that they avoid their normal routines in doing business, taking flights or even getting out of bed. "It's been estimated that [US]$800 or $900 million is lost in business on this day". Despite this, representatives for both Delta and Continental Airlines say that their airlines don't suffer from any noticeable drop in travel on those Fridays

Link to the Actual Document: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_the_13th

Below is an excerpt from About.com http://urbanlegends.about.com/cs/historical/a/friday_the_13th.htm

Friday the 13th - The Most Widespread Superstition?
The sixth day of the week and the number 13 both have foreboding reputations said to date from ancient times, so their inevitable conjunction from one to three times a year portends more misfortune than some credulous minds can bear. Some sources say it may be the most widespread superstition in the United States. Some people won't go to work on Friday the 13th; some won't eat in restaurants; many wouldn't think of setting a wedding on the date.

Just how many Americans at the turn of the millennium still suffer from this condition? According to Dr. Donald Dossey, a psychotherapist specializing in the treatment of phobias (and coiner of the term "paraskevidekatriaphobia," also spelled "paraskavedekatriaphobia"), the figure may be as high as 21 million. If he's right, eight percent of Americans are still in the grips of a very old superstition.

Exactly how old is difficult to say, because determining the origins of superstitions is an inexact science, at best. In fact, it's mostly guesswork.

LEGEND HAS IT: If 13 people sit down to dinner together, all will die within the year. The Turks so disliked the number 13 that it was practically expunged from their vocabulary (Brewer, 1894). Many cities do not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue. Many buildings don't have a 13th floor. If you have 13 letters in your name, you will have the devil's luck (Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names). There are 13 witches in a coven.

Though no one can say for sure when and why human beings first associated the number 13 with misfortune, the belief is assumed to be quite old, and there exist any number of theories — all of which have been called into question at one time or another, I should point out — purporting to trace its origins to antiquity and beyond.

It has been proposed, for example, that fears surrounding the number 13 are as ancient as the act of counting. Primitive man had only his 10 fingers and two feet to represent units; this explanation goes, so he could count no higher than 12. What lay beyond that — 13 — was an impenetrable mystery to our prehistoric forebears, hence an object of superstition.

Which has an edifying ring to it, but one is left wondering — did primitive man not have toes?

Despite whatever terrors the numerical unknown held for their hunter-gatherer ancestors, ancient civilizations weren't unanimous in their dread of 13. The Chinese regarded the number as lucky, some commentators note, as did the Egyptians in the time of the pharaohs.

To the ancient Egyptians, these sources tell us, life was a quest for spiritual ascension which unfolded in stages — 12 in this life and a 13th beyond, thought to be the eternal afterlife. The number 13 therefore symbolized death — not in terms of dust and decay, but as a glorious and desirable transformation. Though Egyptian civilization perished, the symbolism conferred on the number 13 by its priesthood survived, only to be corrupted by subsequent cultures who came to associate 13 with a fear of death instead of a reverence for the afterlife.
---

The more I read, the more I wonder how people are crippled by superstition. Not having a 13th floor in a building is heights, and associating 10 fingers and 2 feet with 12? Whatever happened to the toes?

Anyways … you can read all of it if you have the patience in different websites. To me it is very unfortunate that people are so handicapped by superstition and given in to it so much as to hamper their life and sometimes this leads to them being mental patients. If we have termed (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) as a disease and say it needs treatment? Why don’t we look at curing Superstition?

Monsoon's here ...

Well ... summer's over and monsoon is in ... It kind of has a UK shift (like in BPOs) ... Every evening it rains ... goes on in spells till around 10 pm or so ... weekends sometimes it rains and sometimes it doesn't ... very regular and time bound ... Isn't it nice?

It could be better without the muddy roads and all the digging by BBMP, but what am I complaining about? In the most developed countries like the US of A and the likes, the winter and the snow causes the same distress if not more.

There's an amazing element to Bangalore showers, the other day while I was driving to office, out of the 10 kms I have to drive, the first 2 kms were pouring, the next 3 kms or so absolutely dry, and then it was pouring again until I reached office ... very distinct demarcations. In fact I saw one biker stop his bike around 100 mtrs away from the rain, wore his waterproof jacket, and then rode into the rain. This has always fascinated me ... yesterday it was the best though. I was driving towards Lingarajapuram and I couldn't believe it when I my car passed through a very short-length shower ... just around the length of my car ... Freaky huh?

Well ... I like monsoon, I miss my bike sometimes and the times when I could go riding in the rain with Madhu ... just for fun :)

The Rail Track Photos

We were headed to Nandi hills but as usual on a holiday we started late ... we wanted to get the Sunset, but it was dusk halfway to Nandi hills, so we dropped the idea and stopped near a rail track midway ... the good part is I got some really good shots of Madhu and Manisha that day.


The rest of them can be found here:
My Flickr Album

The Land where Looking Away ensures Safety ...

Imagine you are driving on a busy road, lets say Airport Road, or even better - Outer Ring Road, at a speed of around 60-70 kph ... not REALLY FAST, but speed enough for you not to be able to stop with emergency breaks within 5 metres ... suddenly, out of nowhere a middle aged guy is on the street, walking to cross it, pretty much in line with your car, he is around 10 meters away. The best part is he is not in a hurry to cross the road, you are at a considerable speed, there's traffic behind you, this is not a place someone should cross the road, but this guy is right in front of you and you are losing microseconds to make a decision to stop or dodge to save this guy ... but you are wondering ... "Whose responsibility is it?"

What answer did you get? This guy is crossing the road where he is not supposed to, he is the one who chose to jump in the middle of fast moving traffic to cross the road, for no emergency at all, so this guy should be responsible for his actions? Sounds about right? ... WRONG!!!

Did you observe that he "didn't look at you, your car or any of the traffic that is moving towards him" (which could possibly run him over)? So that is the catch in this situation, he looks away so you know he is not "technically" aware that there's a car or a few cars, a bus and 2 trucks moving towards him. Hence the responsibility of saving him (or not running him over) is yours. He has looked away so he is not responsible anymore.

Don't you love it when a total stranger trusts you with his life? This technically proves we have been able to achieve the best form of co-existence in the history of mankind ... where one doesn't think twice before entrusting a stranger with one's life.

For the one's who have accepted this as a way of life and are moving on, and love this passing on of responsibility ... Congratulations!!! You have attained Moksha... you have happiness at your feet ... Nothing can shake you ... I bow in Thy mighty presence :)

For the more worldly ones, like me, who tend to get hassled by the burden of this responsibility of saving another person's life, who himself doesn't care about it much ... you need to know why you shouldn't run this guy over. Here are some reasons that kind of convinced me ... might help you as well.

• You have a conscience that will not let you breathe easy if your car even touched this guy and he got some bruises and cuts
• If you hit this guy just because he was too close and you couldn't dodge or break, you are the one with the car so it's your fault ... there are no two ways because the mob that would gather would only see who has the bigger vehicle, and compared to a man that's walking, you are the clear choice of who the mob will lynch.
• If these 2 reasons weren't enough, consider what would happen if the police come there before you could escape with some cuts and bruises, you will have to shell out huge sums of money to direct them elsewhere, which is possible because money is why they would come too ... but will set you back quite a few thousands

So my friends, the moral of the story is ... don't expect any sense responsibility from anyone on the streets of Bangalore, you are responsible for their lives and yours too. You cannot expect to convince anyone with logic or the traffic rules, because lets face it, the Traffic police aren't aware of these rules much. That's a different story altogether.

Anyways so lets take an oath that we would live and die for the mankind that has entrusted you with their life. Always remember that with Great Responsibility (like this) comes Very Little Power :)

One more in the Group - National Geographic: Are you good enough?

One more of my photos is invited to be posted in the Discussion where everyone posts photos with more than 5 invites. This is great!!!

The first one that got invited to this thread is:



and the second one is:



I am so happy ... one more reason to celebrate the weekend :)

To Begin With ...

Well ... I guess it had to happen someday ... So here I am with my first Blog. I have named it Celebrating Life ... while it sounds really positive for this day and age with Global Warming, Coalition Governments and Inflation going thru the roof ... my goal is to keep it as positive as possible. However, sometimes I am sure I am allowed to rant about the dug up roads of Bengaluru or the left killing West Bengal or just me not having enough money to Buy the Olympus E-3 or the Zuiko 12-60 SWD lens.



Anyways, I am not sure how a Blog should be written, and I guess I will figure it out as I go ... feel free to let me know what you think of my posts.



More to follow soon ...