To Wish or Not to Wish

(I used this script for completing my Project 2 of Toastmasters. Had a couple of goof-ups while delivering the content but managed to win the Best Speaker prize for this one :-). Do read through and leave me your valuable comments)

Valentine's Day, Women's Day, Mother's Day, Doctor's Day, Grandparents' Day, Send-A-Hug Day, Bubble Bath Day, Respect Your Cat Day - browse through the internet or walk into a nearby novelty store and you will find almost every day of the year tagged as some interesting, sometimes bizarre day!!! Do these days really add cheer to our lives or are they merely money making gimmicks of the commercial world around us? To wish or not to wish, is the question.

Are you a Valentine's Day critic or do you love it's 'love is in the air' feeling? Do you care to stop by and wish your family doctor on Doctor's Day or do you prefer to munch down an apple and keep the doctor away? Do you appreciate the idea of having these designated days? Do you need to have these designated days? Till a few years ago who cared about all these days? I've asked myself these questions often and probably so have you!!!

Today's consumers, like teenagers are a confused lot. Extremely vulnerable and easily exploited by the media. Television, radio and print media are giving bloated publicity to these special days and events in their own interest. So far they have been successfully exploiting us.

TV serials and reality shows ensure such days and events get coverage. It is interesting how they pretend to connect with their audiences whilst they are busy cashing in on their rising TRPs. In Bombay, I've seen the Times of India selling print space to its day-struck readers to convey their wishes in print. You'll get to see 2-3 pages of crammed up greetings on most of these days. Just imagine... Valentine's Day morning and you're wading through scores of sweet nothings that are best kept private.

All this media hype has definitely left a strong impression on the minds of the youth. We tend to attach more importance to these coined days than to our festivals and cultural events. When it comes to Diwali or Pongal, I’m curious about its origin and history. When it comes to Women’s Day or Daughter’s Day, I don’t really care about their origin. For me, it’s more an opportunity to expect designer wear and diamond accessories!!!

Special days and events are heavy on the wallet too. But as long as the money is taken care of do we hesitate before getting those roses and rings at a premium? A special occasion say some… mindless consumerism say others!!!

Days like Friendship Day and Rose Day are a big thing on college campuses. They can create quite a psychological impact on young minds. Just go back down memory lane and you’ll most likely find yourself sulking about how you did not get as many Friendship Ribbons or Red Roses… unless of course you were the reigning Rose Queen or Mr. Popular!!!

Specialized treatment for some could also create a feeling of being left out for some others. For example, doctors get truck-loads of cards on Doctor’s Day… imagine how you would feel if you were a paramedic, compounder or personal assistant to a busy doctor!!!

There’s a lot of hysteria around these days. To be a part of the crowd or not is a tough decision to take. The retail industry has exploited fatter pay packets of the consumer by endorsing these events. Hotels and resorts come up with trendy ideas and packages to celebrate special occasions. Shrewd florists, greeting card and gift shop vendors – they all just add to the commercial chaos around us!!!

So should we put a stop to all this? Well, maybe not. There are two sides to every coin. I also look forward to these events for a variety of reasons.

They give us so many more opportunities to celebrate – so many more avenues to express our feelings. Forgetful husbands often bear the brunt for forgetting their wife’s birthday. Women’s Day is a wonderful opportunity to calm down your angrier half!!!

Days that recognize specific professions have an interesting pull factor. Vocational courses could attract more students – imagine having Plumber’s Day or Vegetable Vendor’s Day!!!

Another positive out of all this is the booming retail industry. Income generation has become a lot easier for smaller players like flower farmers and suppliers. A lot of employment opportunities are generated. Including chances for idle politicos, self appointed moral police and thugs who go about vandalizing flower shops and hotels!!!

Celebrations to me are a way of life. To celebrate or not is a personal decision. What and how to celebrate is also a personal decision– these should be respected. Special occasions and days can be celebrated in a sober way too. It’s the thought that matters... we do not need to be thinking out loud to express our feelings just because everyone around does it. Do it your way – is what I feel is best!!!

And here’s something interesting. Today, the 8th of April happens to be ‘Paint a Picture of a Bird’ Day!!! I’m all set with my drawing sheets and paints. Go grab yours quickly… coz tomorrow could be another special day!!!

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Southern Sojourn

What is this life if full of care,
we have no time to stand and stare!!!

The above couplet is what William Henry Davies mulls over in his poem, 'Leisure'. I have recited these lines endlessly as an innocent school girl memorizing her poems. Little did I realize then that I may be repeating those exact same lines to myself today.

Life today has become so fast paced. It is almost like those high speed rollercoaster rides at the theme park in town. We are running around all the time - school children, working women and men, homemakers, senior citizens - all of us in a hurry all of the time!!! And when we are not running around we are busy setting our alarm clocks and popping vitamins and calciums down our throats. All this to stay one step ahead in this rat race called survival!!!

There's so much around us that we fail to appreciate or maybe we have simply taken them for granted. Mother Nature has blessed us with so much... but somehow we have forgotten to stop by, stand and stare!!!

Fortunately for me I had an opportunity to break away from the urban chagrin this last weekend. I joined my parents on a trip to my father's native town in Tamilnadu - Mayavaram.

Mayavaram (or Mayiladuthurai as it is called now) is a small town in Nagapattinam district. It is located in the historic Thanjavur area on the banks of the infamous Cauvery!!!

My trip to Mayavaram and a couple of nearby villages was a wonderful experience. Truly refreshing and a welcome break from the hustle and bustle of Chennai. What follows is an account of this trip, quite clearly one of my favourite trips!!!

We took a bus to Mayavaram on Friday night. The bus was headed to a place called Karaikudi. We reached Mayavaram at around 4.15 am after a six hour journey. The bus ride was quite comfortable. The lodge where we were to put up was 5 minutes away by walk from where we got off. We dragged ourselves and our luggage to the lodge. Sleepwalking with a twist, I should add!!! To our surprise - the lodge was shut!!! We were amused and irritated at the same time. I have always been the urban pampered customer variety enjoying the pleasures of 24X7 services and the like - and now this kind of reception at an unearthly hour!!! This was my first brush with life in a non-metro. We finally knocked our way into the lodge and managed to catch up with some sleep.

At around 8.00 a.m. we went to a nearby hotel for a sumptuous South Indian breakfast - hot steaming idlis, mouth watering vadais and delicious pongal - served on the traditional banana leaf. Breakfast was heavenly and the early morning experience was long forgotten!!!

We were to visit our ancestral temple during the day. It is located at a village called Anandatandavapuram and is about 7 kms away from Mayavaram. We bought some flowers and fruits as offerings for the deity and began our drive down to the village.

The drive was simply enchanting. It took us around 30 minutes to get to the temple. The roads were good. There were some rough patches, but on the whole were a pleasure to drive on. The journey through the countryside was refreshing in every sense. The green pastures on both sides looked like soft green carpets spread all over. Goats of all sizes were running around the place. Young girls with stacks of hay on their heads were walking along the roads. We passed by some sugarcane fields in full harvest. Coconut trees laced the roads on some stretches. There was this sweet pleasant fragrance of freshness in the wind that blew against our faces as our car zipped by the fields and villages.

We reached the temple after a while. It's a really small and simple temple compared to the fanfare that bigger temples like the ones at Tirupati, Sabarimala and Vaishnodevi attract. We were the only devotees for the day. You have to actually inform the temple priests in advance that you would be visiting. The head priest was getting all the arrangements done for the abhishekam. We finished offering our prayers to Lord Ayyanar, had our prasadam and spent some time inside the temple premises. The temple has a stone elephant and mahout on one side. This elephant has always been my star attraction at the temple right from when I was a kid. I was so happy to be there again and took a couple of pictures too.

There is a small pond just outside the temple. The water in the pond had a soothing blue-green colour and a constant shimmer with the sunrays reflecting on it. There was nothing more to it, yet it looked so beautiful, so serene. I took my time to stand and stare - at the pristine waters, at the refreshing green trees and at the clear blue skies. Davies and his poem crossed my mind! I continued to stand and stare - this time with a smile on my face!!!

We began our return journey after a couple of hours. The weather was really pleasant and the drive back to town was just as rejuvenating as the one in the morning. Neatly piled hay stacks were a common sight along the fields and even outside the small houses we passed. I was tempted to get a couple of pictures taken between those haystacks and managed to convince our driver to stop near one of them!! It was an exciting moment... I was finally in the middle of a green field with hay all around... just like in the movies!!!

We traveled though some village inroads too. Small little boys clad in shorts were playing marble outside their homes. They stopped their game when our car passed by them. They had smiles on their faces as they stared at the car and at us - they had their time to stand and stare!!!

Cattle and goats were taking their post lunch stroll alongside the occasional vehicular traffic. There was one point when this really cute puppy dog was walking towards our speeding car. Our driver gracefully hit the clutch and brake and patiently waited for the little one to pass by playfully. So much for the small little pup - a must share experience with all our rash auto and bus drivers and the rich spoilt brats who probably list out their hit and run achievements at their Page 3 parties.

The small thatched huts, the twigged fences, the grazing cattle and the hens and chickens running around - the phrase 'Home Sweet Home' fits in here perfectly. Bungalows, pent houses, multi-storeyed skyscrapers may have it all, but the thatched huts had a charm of their own.

We got back to Mayavaram and left for Chennai after a couple of hours. This southern sojourn was one of the most refreshing experiences I've ever had. The fresh air and the beautiful greens have left a strong impression on my mind!!! Looking forward to many more such journeys that give me an opportunity to be one with Mother Nature in all her splendour!!!

*****

PS: You can check out pictures of this beautiful experience right here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/priya7481/MayavaramTrip?authkey=ZwazHsunz9o

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Great Minds... waiting to be discovered!!!

The other day I received an email with ‘Great Indians’ as its subject header. I opened the mail casually, eager to check if I’ve seen it before. But it wasn’t just another forward. This one got me thinking… it got me thinking real hard!!!


The mail highlighted some breakthrough innovations in the field of mathematics, science, astrology, medicine, yoga etc. It spanned across the likes of Aryabhatta, Bhaskaracharya, Sushrut and Varahamihir. A sense of pride engulfed me when I realized that all the modern day wonders in these domains have their roots in India. I closed the mail with a broad smile. While doing that I chanced upon the subject line once again and a thought pierced through my mind. ‘Great Indians’ – These great Indians made their contributions hundreds of years ago. Why have we not had as many ‘Great Indians’ in the last couple of decades?


Food for thought isn’t it? Spend a couple of minutes pondering over this and you will realize that most of the world’s leading innovations have their origins in something that was pioneered in India. I am sure this thought will lead you to question yourself. Has innovation in India stagnated? Have we learnt and grown enough? Have we stopped looking for newer things?


Given that the ‘Great Indians’ who I quoted earlier achieved their claim to fame so many years ago, it is an understood fact that access to information, communication, technology etc was not available to them. What they have achieved was purely on the basis of merit and the genius within them. With so much of advancement happening around us today why has the number of great Indian minds dwindled over the years? Why don’t we hear of such breakthroughs in India instead of simply being in awe of what the developed nations are churning out, in spite of the fact that one of the main reasons they’re doing well is that they get a lot of their inputs off Indian shelves!!!


With the boom in Information Technology, easy access to information and strong knowledge hubs available to us, the proportion of great thinking and such innovations should have been much higher. Sadly though most of today’s ‘great thinking’ happens abroad, and in most cases it is fuelled by Indian minds branded internationally. More crudely put – the brain drain continues!!!


India often complains about her problem of population explosion. It is a problem no doubt, but our inability to channelize our human resources is one of the main reasons why we’re drifting away unguided.


Information Technology in India has played the role of a catalyst in many ways. Be it bridging the urban-rural divide, generation of employment opportunities for people from the smallest of towns in India or the boom in our country’s economy, a lot has changed … a lot has improved. Unfortunately, though this entire boom is driven by the western world. We Indians are just following the crowd… potential great minds simply rusting away!!!


What then are the reasons for this stagnation? We cannot really blame our educational system entirely. In terms of curricula I think we are surely progressing but the Indian pedagogy needs a major revamp!!! Today most of our leading business schools and premier technical institutes market their brand on the basis of their placement statistics. Jobs in blue chip companies and hefty pay packets are what students are looking out for. Quality learning and practical implementation seem to have lost their significance.


Once we achieve our ‘dream’ jobs, there’s nothing much to be really happy about. Most of our corporate setups believe in taking the easier approach to business practices. Taking the trodden path seems to be the safest way out. Innovative Thinking takes yet another beating… all in the name of following ‘industry standards’ and ‘best practices’ laid down by the west.


For instance, take a look at a cross section of the IT companies in India. A majority of them adopt an onsite-offshore business model. This means our onsite counterparts decide what we do and how we do it. Take a closer look… and you’ll realize that most of the work that is off shored is some variant of software maintenance activity – production support, code upgrades and bug fixing etc. Simply put the quality of work that comes to us is very menial as compared to what we are capable of.


Is this how are dream jobs were meant to be? The irony of the whole thing is that we fail to realize this at the right time because all this humbug is brilliantly camouflaged. Interesting salary packages, stylish perks and incentives, pick up and drop facilities, Sodexho passes, a couple of onsite trips (not to mention the allowances in foreign currency) and the entire shopping mall - multiplex culture that has gripped our nation blankets the monotony of the inferior quality of the work being dumped on us. When we realize what we’ve got ourselves into we look up to job-hopping as the only solution!!! If this continues the larger problem will only get larger!!!


India’s corporate community has a major role to play to help our her emerge as a global innovator. In this fast paced economy there will be many obstacles that stunt efforts made by an individual or a group of individuals. Corporate bigwigs, political visionaries and our IT giants need to encourage, finance, market and sustain innovative thinking in order to help our nation scale greater heights. The appreciation in the value of the Indian Rupee is something we should be proud of. Instead there seems to be a lull in the business community. Imagine the returns we could have garnered if we had geared up ourselves intellectually. We could have done so well exporting all our homegrown products, services and ideas.


Also, I strongly believe that the IT sector has got a lot of undue mileage over the last few years. There are so many sectors like agriculture, medicine, finance, biotechnology, education and many more such areas where we can innovate and come out with path breaking revelations. There’s a lot of potential and there are a lot of avenues waiting to be explored. We just need to get started!!! We cannot rely on our government to help us in this initiative. There’s a lot of mess within that needs to tackled anyway. CEO’s of huge organizations in India should look beyond their company balance sheets and extend the required platform and opportunity to harness our true potential and emerge as a global leader in the true sense.


It’s time we look beyond earning profits for international multinational companies. It’s time we make way for many more ‘Great Indians’!!!

(PS: A special thanks to Balaji for forwarding the 'Great Indians' mail to me and to Saravanan for his comments on what I felt about that mail.)

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Aaja Nachle... to the tune of politics!!!

Madhuri Dixit-Nene's return to Bollywood has been the latest buzz in Bollywood. The dancing queen continues to dazzle one and all with her beautiful smile. Her fans sure are happy to have her back!!! Movie buffs are happy to see her back on the silver screen. Reality shows are cashing in on the occasion by inviting Madhuri over. Aaja Nachle was the talk of the town!!! Sounds too perfect to be so straight and clean, right. There has to be something that plays spoilsport... and when there's no one to do that... politicians and their supporters nonchalantly oblige!!!

The lyrics in the movie's title track, 'mohalle mein kaisi mara mar hai/ bole mochi bhi khud ko sunaar hai' (what is this commotion in the neighbourhood/ a cobbler is calling himself a goldsmith) has given a chance for people to complain and create an issue out of something that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. I'm sure the lyricist meant no offence to those of a particular caste!!!

With all due respect to people of all castes and creed, all I'd like to say is that such incidents are exploited by our politicians to the core!!! Film music lovers (cobblers, goldsmiths and the rest of the clan) would have gone ahead and enjoyed the song without even paying attention to the lyrics and taking such serious offence!!!

I'm not a casteist, but if our (???!!!!) politicians were really so sensitive to casteism why can't they really 'do' something for the upliftment of the lower castes (sadly it does exist as a concept!!) instead of publicizing the whole matter and blowing it out of proportion and in the melee enjoy their much needed political mileage!!!

Grow up dear politicians... we're a mature audience... and we're watching you too!!!

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