Swacch Bharat... Healthy Bharat

It all started off with the PM of India, Mr. Narendra Modi starting off a campaign to keep India clean. Clean India, and that will make a healthy India, was the simple message. A message that started off from the Ramparts of the Red Fort on his inaugural speech as the PM of India, a message that he carried on during his move to Rashtrapati Bhavan, following it himself, sending direct / indirect messages to various departments in the Ministries, that his penchant for cleanliness was not something of a flash in the pan.

Cleanliness is said, is next to Godliness. Old saying. The Father of the Indian Nation, Mahatma Gandhi too propagated it and lived by it. He knew very well, that being clean not only meant cleanliness of the self, but also of the surrounding areas within oneself.

We are all aware of the Plague that hit 20 years back in Surat. A plague that rocked the country like never before. A sickness that literally cast India as an untouchable. A disease that nearly knocked India in its guts. There have been enough discussions and articles on this, and I don’t plan to start another theory, as to what went wrong or how it could have been avoided, but a simple question does come. Did we ask for it?

As one reasearches the topic (and there is enough material on the web), one finds, that it was not the number of deaths that were caused by the plague that was an issue (It is reported at a number of places, that only 56 people died). It was the way it came about, the terrifying speed with which it created havoc and near calamities, the impact to society, business and economy as a whole (a loss of nearly $600 M + in 1994), and at the same time, the urgency and vigour with which it was cleaned and cleared

The cause if one looks at it, was simple. Cleanliness, the lack of it. The fact that the city was not amongst the best in the country in terms of good living conditions, the fact that urbanization in the need for the State’s / City’s development led to a situation where living conditions started moving South, the fact that poor living conditions also meant that interactions with infected animals (rats in this case), started becoming the norm, and before one could probably shout, Shiver Me Timbers, the rot had crept in.

Fast and swift action resulted in the infection being subdued within a week. Fast forward to 2014, Surat today is a bustling city, with not a trace of the near calamity that engulfed it 20 years ago. Yes, time flies, people forget, new generations arise, but history remains the same What contributed to ensuring that this was not repeated, was a drive by the citizens and residents of the place to ensure that the first time was the last time. After all, nearly 45% of the world’s diamond polishing takes place in Surat!

A huge push to ensure streets were cleared of garbage, rats were exterminated, sewers were cleared of all obstacles to ensure a free flowing drainage system, effectively minimizing the chances of diseases. A drive that pushed all across India, as this was a grim reminder of what could have been, but did not.

But hang on, if this started a drive, why is the PM reinforcing the message. Why has he started a momentum for all of India to follow? Did we not have a similar scare in Mumbai years ago, when the rain water filled up in the drains and spilled over onto the streets, where people could not walk without fear of being sucked into some open man hole. The reason for the overflow at that time, plastic bags!

Fact of the matter is, that we are back to the same causes that initiated the sickness years ago. It may not be that bad yet (else, half the country would have been dead by now), but the fact is, that we are still a long way before we reach our goal of cleanliness across the length and breadth of the country.

We do not think twice before we throw a wrapper of a chocolate on the street, into a drainage if possible. What will one do, we say, but then so do a thousand others. We insist on buying plastic bags when we go vegetable shopping, only to come home and throw the plastic bag into the bin. Could we not have taken that bag?

We will not hesitate to throw out the garbage on the street, as long as it does not sit in our kitchen waste. We cannot sit with the smell, and if it smells on the street, the down trodden are used to living in filth. We lose our temper on our children when they scratch our painted walls with a pencil, even taking upto an hour to ensure that the wall is cleaned properly and no stain mark remains, yet we have no hesitation in spitting Paan or any thing in our mouth on the wall of another.

The list can go on and on, it is never ending, but the issue remains. What will it take us to learn? Why can we not realize that the streets we dirty are nothing but an extension of where we live. One will not leave his house every time a street gets dirty, but why can some one not take the initiative to ensure that he or she will not litter? Why do we have to wait for some one else to commence, so we follow. Why can we not, LEAD?

Are we so stubborn and beyond redemption that unless we are fined, or unless we live in countries like Singapore, New Zealand, Norway, we will not contribute. We don’t utter a word if we are fined for littering, but quietly pay. Do we need to be reminded that we are dirty?

As we progress to do something that is so basic and something that should be inbuilt, I cannot but wonder. What went wrong? India was a clean country, centuries ago, what changed? It could be various factors, going from ruralization to urbanization and the price of the same, increasing populations leading to lack of space, but most important, what I do believe is “Lack of Basic Education”

No matter what one does, the  key factor to any kind of progress is Education or lack of it. This is not being educated in terms of having a Degree or Masters in Economics, but simple house hold education that every child should be a part of. Education that can only be provided by one’s parents. Education that comes from communities, schools, friends, from society as a whole, which if not, would be unfortunate.

That despite all our setbacks we still need to learn the hard way.

That something that should be part and parcel of our very nature, has to be taught to us by others.

That once bitten twice shy is not an adage that we follow.

That we never learn from History, and are condemned to repeat it.

Life and Boredom

It was the article in the local paper that caught attention. Teenager is no more. One more, damn hell, what is going on, was the first thought as I delved into the article.

As went through it turned out that a teenager had decided to end his life the reason given, he was bored with life and hence decided to end it. More over, he did not want his remains to be taken back home to his country. What a shocker of a start to a day.

With the limited information that could manage to get through the news, it did appear that a student who was appearing for his exams decided to end his life and wrote his final note on the School Exam Paper addressed to his parents. Why this was done, no one knows and probably being a private matter, should rest at that.

As I read the related Articles on the subject, could not but help wonder, is this the result of a society or the community going wrong some where? You have here a child who has access to probably every thing a child probably needs, access to a life and requirements, more probably than what his parents or their parents had, a life of ease and luxury, that was worked for by one's parents, but yet not enough.

The question can be multi fold. There have been numerous articles where students take their life every year, many due to pressures of studying, many due to peer pressure, many due to pressures of not being able to get a good college, or their girl friend leaving them, or the girl that they think they are in love with not accepting their love and getting married...... and.. and.. and... and... the list can be endless..

Question is, is life so cheap? Is life really meaningless that one can decide to end it simply due to a whim, or simply because it did not measure up to expectations? Is life so expected to be full of zest, that a little slackness ends up being a killer? Is life a comparative model that is measured on graphs in comparison with others? Has life really become a bore?

There are no doubt today a lot more pressures, a lot more challenges that what were there 100 years ago. Times no doubt have changed, cut throat competition more sharper than a razors edge, and the impact is there for all to see. Schools / Colleges are no longer guaranteed, parents are finding ways to survive better than their peers, parents make their children go through heaven and hell to ensure that they finish on the top of the lot to get the best in life, to be an all rounder, to be No. 1 in every thing in life, no matter the cost.

To this extent, one even sees Parents going the extra mile to ensure that their kids get the best. Be it education, clothes, lifestyle, cars, accessories, what ever, it has to be the best. One cannot be seen to be a shade lower than their peers, as per many a parent, it could scar their children psychologically!!

But at what cost? We see more and more children getting disillusioned with life, more children unable to meet the expectations set from them, more getting dragged into a lifestyle of comparisons and show biz, that ultimately leads to destruction. For sure there will be those who succeed, but then for every success, there are surely 100 failures which are never heard of. The ones we hear are where people have lost their lives, or given up and lost and at that moment, we all shed a tear of sorrow with a comment, Poor kid.

Question that comes is, what is needed to make life simple yet interesting. What is needed to make life less competitive? What is needed to make life, a means to live and not a means to run to reach to the end, only to find out that there is no one there, or we were actually pushed to reach there, at the needs of some one else. What is required to have children and most important parents understand, that life is for living? There is a reason why a child is born, the result of two people deciding to create / bring new life into the world.

Question that comes is, are parents, society bringing in new life to put them into challenges and into the rat race? Why not simply decide to leave life as is? Why make it so complicated that living itself becomes a burden. One does wonder.. We talk about leaving a better world to our children. But in a planet that is no better than before, a world filled to the brim with environmental disasters, are we also leaving them a life full of stress! What are they going to leave their children? Probably too far out to think!

And then, there was Life...!!!

Death... Followed by Life.. Is that not inevitable? We all do know that Life is followed by Death, as what comes has to go, but rarely do we hear that what goes, surely comes back.

Yes, if one reads the Epics of Ramayan and Mahabharat, they are completely based on people being reborn, either to attain salvation or to extract revenge, which too is part of the discourse in the Bhagvad Gita, that the soul remains for ever, it is just the exterior that changes form.

No, not starting a discourse on Life after Death, or Death followed by Life, but what did bring this subject to mind for a thought was we see people coming and going all around us. A few weeks back, had gone through the sudden demise of a dear friend passing away... Some time later, went through the Joy of hearing that my Kid Brother, was now a proud Father. A new baby in the family.

Of course, both were totally unrelated, both families not connected, but the thought did come across.. Surely there will be families who go through the pain of parting mixed with the Joy of a new addition. What overrides? The sorrow to the one who has lost a partner, or the Joy of another, having a part of one's self entering into the World, with a life that is just starting.

Death and Life or Life and Death (depends on how one views it), are inevitable facets of the cycle of life. Whether walking or flying, all creatures have to succumb to this, some through nature's planned road, some unprepared and sudden. What does remain key, is what we make out of the Life that we get? How well do we use it?

Do we enjoy the little things that we get in Life, or do we cry on what we did not? Some take it seriously, some as it comes, some take it is a joke, some having no value for it. Some always cursing it, some thankful for it, wanting it, waiting for it to come, wanting to contiune for ever.

Life followed by Death, or Death followed by Life. Sounds like the "A Light at the end of a Tunnel" or Every Dark Cloud has a Silver Lining"....... For me it is Death followed by Life.. How about you?

Life on Cruise Control

Another long hiatus, not planned, but invariably lands up....  Too many topics, lack of them, too many thoughts, none, lost, confused, happy, sad.... the mix is always nice....

Reading an article recently in one of the online papers, about how a car's Cruise Control failed and of course, the cops coming to his rescue. A simple case of a driver driving his car at 139 KM PH, and leaving it on cruise for obviously a long drive up ahead....

Running through the article, could not but help come up with questions... The first and foremost being Why, followed by a wide eyed What?? Putting yourself in the hands of a machine that simply takes you on a tour, with a speed defined by you no doubt, but being controlled by some one else!! Why would one want to do that..

For sure the reasons may be many, long clear road, no obstacles, who wants to manage controlling the speed of slowing down, if some thing comes in the way, just change lanes and so on... All good, as long as we can control this.. And the other worrying comment was, that this is a regular feature now, with a lot of people.

What the news did not cover (for obvious reasons I guess), was whether the driver was alone, or had kids and family.. It might not be a surprise that this could also very well be the case.

But then, transposing this to Life.. Don't we follow the same? Putting life on Cruise Control, the same speed with which we live it every day.. In our race to be at the head of the pack, we too follow certain rules, norms, and at a breakneck speed, as no one wants to climb the bus at the next stop. If one does, he is considered a slacker.

We only recognize those who arrive before time, have a spot of recklessness in them, willing to put all on the table, in a gamble that no one knows where will end. We strive to be the best, no issue in that, but at what cost? We, who would not want probably our own parents to run our lives, will gladly put it in the hands of others, whom we do not know, of whose powers we may not have the full inkling, but will do so, as that guarantees success.. For sure, life starts well, as it gears speed, it definitely moves to a Cruise mode, but what is also necessary is at what speed that Cruise is..

If we are unable to control that cruise and get off it when we need to, is it really worth it?

Life.. A Fast Track Race..?

Saturday Morning, Feb 18, 2012... Quite frankly, not the very best of days in my life, as being a weekend turned out to be a cross between a decision as to should I relax and laze at home, or finish my chores that were pending to be cleared.. Of course, the chores won.

Not really complex ones, very simple.. I had to go and get my Car renewed for the year. The passing had all been done last week, however I had not been able to close this, due to the need to clear out fines on my car. Of course, Saturday being Saturday, the laziness won over the first part of the day, leaving the second part to finish, threatening to destroy the week ahead.

What is difficult one would say in this? For me it was very simple.. Heading to the RTA (Road and Transport Authorities), the route was filled with people who despite being on the fast lanes, preferred the traditional 70 KMPH, rather than the permissible 120... Having a bit of a short fuse and being impatient by nature, this is enough to rile you up early on.. Add to it, the fact that you are shelling out money for stupidity that could have been simply avoided, is salt to the wounds.

You honk, you blare, you dip, you zig zag, you glare.. The opposite person does not care and all he / she does is a wave of a hand. You get more upset. And to enjoy this, a peppy number come up. The feelings of "That Magical Song" (my last post), come up and that too does not help. You reach your destination, upset / happy / grouchy, you want to get your job done fast, but you find more people now on two legs at the same pace, in front of you, beside you, and there is nothing that you can simply do.

Point in question? I compared this to life. How many times at work and in life, we meet people who prefer to let life run on its pace, as opposed to the helter skelter that we have made it into. Work today is no longer a 9 - 5 option.. It is a 9 - 9 job as a standard, and without it even being in your job description, multi tasking is an art. Your mind should be at 10 places in the same moment and you should be ready to do any thing that is expected or unexpected at the drop of a hat. You run like a man on a mission.. Full blast, expecting all to think like you, act like you, and run like you..

The other end are the people who want to move at their own pace. A supermarket, where the guy in front of you has 50 items in his cart, but is talking on the phone. Each item is picked up with the speed of a tortoise.. A stop here to get a joke or pass a comment.. And you behind would simply like to take the cart and turn it upside down. People on the footpath, on the roads, at the airport terminal, who cannot walk straight. Swinging side by side, slowly, they get in your way, when you would like to run.

No doubt, we have made life into a race track where it is always about the winner. No one wants to know who came second. No one cares, and we too go into the quagmire of life, where the fine line of where to stop, ceases to exist, not having any meaning at all. I realized this on the way back.. The guy who I overtook on the road, the guy who I waltzed past at the Traffic department, the person who i cut at the supermarket to be ahead in line, the team member who took an extra five minutes for coffee... They all did their job eventually. Their work got done, and probably more peacefully than I could.

The running, the stress, the mind working overtime, hundreds of thoughts.. Did it really matter?

A 30 Second Speech by Bryan Dyson



Speech by Coca Cola CEO

Got this on a FB post.. Nothing new, has been going around for a couple of years, always crops up now and then, you have people sharing a like, a Share, a comment, very good, so true, excellent, wonderful thoughts, and all the blah blah blah that comes along with it...



Is it bad? Is it wrong? No. What has been stated is so very true, and there have been a number of such thought provoking speeches over the years that we have read and will probably continue to read. The Dhirubai Ambani's, the Narayanan Murthy's, the Lee Iacoca's and all.. I totally agree, there has to be a balance of all, but at what stage?

Does this appy to a person starting his career? Can a fresher out of college go with this attitude? Can a person who has not had a job for months, think this way, that he will work efficiently and will leave on time. Who guarantees no retrenchments? Who gurarantees a Job? Who assures that what will be considered will be the efficiency of the work, not the fact that people have done their job and left on time.



In this world of man eat man, where even dog does not eat a dog, can this be said to be true all across. May be yes, once you reach a point in life, a certain destination, a certain goal, but the fact is, that you cannot have this 100% applied.. Bryan Dyson may have stated what he might have followed after becoming a CEO, however has he mentioned any of the hard nights that he might have gone through to reach that post?

I am just reminded of Ratan Tata's comment when he wanted to have a meeting in Jaguar after taking over.. The fact that people were not available after office hours, was an upsetting factor. The fact that people did not consider long travelling visitors who came to meet, was upsetting.. And by no means, is Ratan Tata a small grocery owner.. Who does one follow..

For me.. It is your call.. You know best, when to stop.. Work will never finish, however one should know where the line draws. No doubt what Dyson says is true, and certainly there has to be a balance, and every one has their own markers.