What is wrong with us?

My roommates and I have a habit of having a little chat after dinner everyday. The subject is usually sparked by a TV commercial, or a hot topic from website involving politics, technology, movies, even health care. One thing that I always notice is that we never end with a conclusion. When the decibel levels return to normal, we finish the debate with the same opening line we used, except the words are changed and may be this time in English( wonder why?!!).
Recently, the talk was about India (my most/least favorite) and her development. I, for one, always believed that whatever India has achieved must go to the record books, because each and every achievement is a result of some unknown’s hard work despite the stupidity that surrounds him/her. As someone who never made good scores in history, I think I have earned the right to say history is uninteresting and it only keeps track of champions and the beaten. Even worse, the winner gets to write the history books. When some of them get to walk on water (no offense), others are deemed to be savage fools. Human mind is polluted/enriched by personal prejudices (or preferences, if you like) and so an unbiased opinion, if anything, is mostly an illusion.
Now, back in our apartment, after discussing some important issues and even a master plan to propel India to world power, we went to bed. As I chewed some of the statements made by my roomies, I could not help but notice our affinity towards negativity and our lack of pride in being an Indian. When we discussed the successful PSLV launch, the history topper in the room proclaimed “this is too late. We should have done it earlier. Look at Russia/ China…..”. Even the supporters see the achievement as ISRO’s success, as though they are some kind of critique. It was achieved by India and, for God sake, be proud of it.

As the educated, we feel like we can make judgments about leaders whose era we never experienced. Hardly ever managed more than a group of 5, we think we can write off men who influenced a whole nation. My personal policy is not to depose the departed.
I think it’s a normal human tendency to enjoy when a hero fails. I loved Da-vinci code when it derided Christ (again, no offense). Similarly we love a piece of paper/article that says something bad about a past leader and we sentence the person to disparagement. I couldn’t believe my ears when someone accused Mother Theresa of converting her patients to Christianity (why did we ever come up with religion!?!) and fumed on Gandhiji getting more fame than what he deserved (!?!). How in the hell do you rate someone who gave his/her life for the betterment of others?
Praise your heroes, but think before despising others’. By language, race, color, and the worst of all religion, we are split in our emotions and add the Indian’s very own negativism; we have a bunch of intelligent ignorants. As I said, there never is any conclusion in our talks, but I think unless we get our minds clear of the prejudice, we can never hope for one. I should get started.
So to all the fellow educated citizens of my beloved nation, we may not be tech gurus as Russia, or mighty as china. But we are, in this life belong to India. So learn to appreciate or at least live with it. She gave everything she could for us, so don’t despise her.

That’s the least she expects from us.

What did i miss??

After a three week ordeal with a tough assignment, i feel like i have been released from a transparent box. There is nothing wrong with that tbox, except that one can only view things as it happens in front of them and there is no perspective involved. I was aware of the violent shoot-out at Vtech, Srilanka’s dominant progress in cricket world cup, the successful launch of PSLV by India, exclusion of sachin from ODI team and other things like Rai-Bachan wedding. None of them had anything to do with me, but still I felt I was not a part of the physical karma involved, you know, ‘everybody is linked to everyone else’ thing. So, I call it the transparent box (tbox), because it lets you watch (or know) events, but its similar to watching the idiot box (ibox?!) in your living room, there is no ‘perspective’ involved.
The assignment was to simulate a operating system architecture, with a specified a set of spec. I don’t want to say much about the complexity, but it is easily the toughest programming assignment that I have laid my hands on, since any time I can remember. This subject has a history of being notorious in putting students in the tbox, and I was pretty sure that I’ll be a permanent resident there. Fortunately I had a couple of friends who were also condemned to the tbox and we helped each other out.
I owe my release to the phrase “Dig the first hole, and eventually you will have the garden”. I cannot remember that last time when I came to know of a timely phrase that I’ll remember for life. This one is certainly a keeper. The beginning of the assignment was pretty rough but as I crossed the 4th hair pin bend, I was already practicing my lines of how I would explain the failure to my instructor. But the phrase pretty much held through and by the weekend I was pretty happy about way it turned out. As the D-day approached there is something called the ‘pressure’ that adds up. The assignment hit a wall and there is no way around it. I would love to know if there was any irony in this situation – feeling desperate for not being able finish the assignment, which I did not plan to finish in the first place. Then of course there is the Black box (bbox-I know, it is over kill, but I like it), the box where you were blinded by your inner tragedy (!?!) and don’t care about what happens around you. I went over the program repeatedly until I was convinced that the bug was a conspiracy by my brother and will Farrell. And then there was light and I found the “;” that I had missed in the code. Double back to the tbox and couple tens of hours later I am in the real world. And suddenly there are a lot of things that I want to know and there is lot of time, well, sort of. I got finals week next week, not really a week, I only have a single exam, but its a tough one. I know the next question from you…why is everything tough for you? Because I expect life to be fair to everyone and easy to me, that’s why!!!
Now that I am here, lets see. Yes, it is tragic that a troubled mind destroyed his soul along with 33 more. But this brings us back to the ‘everybody is linked to everyone else’ theory. Let Peace prevail on the departed souls. Yes, Srilanka’s run Is great, but the roos will be the champs. Yes, ISRO’s launch of PSLV is a great achievement and I am proud of it. And by the way, to hell with those who degrade this. Yes, it’s an unfortunate event that sachin misses an ODI series in 17 years (fully fit), lets hope for the best. As for as the marriage goes, I just don’t care.
Morale – tbox is great!!!