All of us would have read lots of stories in our childhood, of the famous emperor, Akbar and his wise minister Birbal. To be honest even now we cannot (at least I cannot) resist reading through Akbar-Birbal story the moment we come across one. However, you bet the story that I am going to narrate here may not have been read or heard by anyone of you till now.
It so happened that on one fine morning Akbar got up from his bed and almost ran to the palace of his queen to let her know the dream he just woke up from. In the dream he saw a holy saint who sang the praises of Akbar’s mother-tongue and asked him what he did as a king to express the love towards the language he spoke. Akbar really felt guilty after realizing that he had done nothing to show affection towards his beloved language. For the moody king that he was, at that very moment Akbar proclaimed that each and every citizen of his kingdom should speak only the King's language, no matter where he or she hailed from. And there was severe punishment for those who did not follow the King's order.
Obviously those who could not speak Akbar’s language were horrified with this new ordinance and as in any other story, as a last resort they approached Birbal for a remedy. Birbal merrily accepted the challenge.
The following Sunday Birbal insisted that he accompanied the King when the King was out for hunting in the nearby jungle. As the King was busy hunting, Birbal talks to the King, “Sir, all these animals in this jungle except the lion – the king, have no right to live here.” “But why Birbal?”, the king astonishingly asks. Birbal adds, “My Lord, the monkey, the elephant, the deer, the fox, the wolf, no one roars like the lion, their own king. They don’t speak their king’s language it seems.”
Now, Akbar thoroughly puzzled at Birbal’s answer turns to him and asks, “Birbal are you mad. How can all the animals speak the lion’s language? God has given each one of them their own language and its stupid on your part to expect everyone to roar the way lion does or speak his language, even though he is their king.”
It was now Birbal’s turn. He gives an innocent look at the King and continues, “Sir, these animals do not know the simple rule of the kingdom that no matter what their original language is still they should speak only the king’s language. And since these animals do not know this simple rule, they deserve to be kicked out of this jungle.”
The King was wise enough to read between Birbal’s lines and to catch the hint that Birbal was aiming at. He immediately abandons his hunting trip and heads back to the kingdom to announce withdrawal of his language-ordinance, apologize to his fellow citizens and also to give a pat on Birbal’s back for once again proving his worth in the entire council of ministers.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Vishal Heart
I have lately developed a habit - I don’t know good or bad or is it because of the profession in which I am – that in everything I try to look for a take away. Only for this habit these days my son warns me on my offer to him for a movie that it would alright for him if I don’t buy him a coke and popcorn in the interval but if at the end of the movie I am going to discuss the take away from the movie he would rather chose other options of entertainment than accompanying me for the movie.
Be it as it may, the purpose of this article is to try and find out the take away of the bubbly dinner and cocktail party that I attended last Friday. It was a usual business-season-end celebration party and the average age of the party folks was between 25 and 30 years. Perhaps my presence in the party was instrumental in pushing the average-age number northwards.
The rise in the spirit at the party was directly proportional to the speed at which the stock of the spirit at the bar-tender’s table was diminishing. And quite common to any such youth parties there was a guy who got on to his ‘high’ quite early in the party, let’s call him Mr Hi.
Now comes the take away part.....
I was observing from a distance that there were clearly three classes of people in that evening’s party and once you read down further, probably you would tend to think that these three classes of people can be found in variety of situations in society.
One class of party-men belonged to those who were enjoying the party themselves, indifferent to the literal rise and fall of Mr Hi – let’s call them the neutral class, where probably majority of society members are covered under. The other class belonged to those who keeping their own spirits in control were inspiring Mr Hi to drink more and provide more fun to the party – let’s call them the fun class. The line of control between “fun” and “fun @ the cost of someone” was getting blurred when the fun class started finding rather uncommon means of enjoyment with Mr Hi at the centre of the dance floor. Exactly at that time I found the other and very thinly populated class of people - represented in that party by a single individual but with a big or ‘vishal’ heart. This representative was albeit part of the fun class initially but the moment he realized possibility of crossing the line of control between “fun” and “fun @ the cost of someone”, he distanced himself from the fun class to create his own class. With each passing moment, this man with a big heart was getting upset at the fun class for the fun that was being extracted at the cost of Mr Hi. And soon he could not resist himself to walk straight in the middle of the dance floor to help Mr Hi get out of the mess he had ‘unconsciously’ created for himself. I am sure there were many others in the party who wanted to help Mr Hi but just let that feeling or instinct go by or chose to turn a blind’s eye – a simpler approach. In fact some of the party folks reached out this gentleman to teach him to be indifferent and dissuaded him from ‘interfering’ in others’ affairs probably because it did not affect any of them.
What happened subsequently was not very relevant. For me the take away was to introspect into which class I belonged to that evening. And frankly with great hesitation (or confession) the answer came from within - the neutral class! This was just a representative situation of many other we come across in every walk of our life. We do not subscribe to many things from within but just let them go by. Many of us tend to take a short cut of letting go by things around us. We forget that what differentiates the mankind from rest of the living beings is the “sensitivity” about others and more so about the fellow human beings. We tend to follow a simple philosophy that let the messiah to save the society be born –not to us but to the neighbour.
Can you answer for yourself which class would you have belonged to that evening? Do we all have courage to change over from the neutral or the fun class if our conscience wants us to or do we suppress our instincts and follow the majority of the neutral or the fun class? I would want to ponder over this.....
Be it as it may, the purpose of this article is to try and find out the take away of the bubbly dinner and cocktail party that I attended last Friday. It was a usual business-season-end celebration party and the average age of the party folks was between 25 and 30 years. Perhaps my presence in the party was instrumental in pushing the average-age number northwards.
The rise in the spirit at the party was directly proportional to the speed at which the stock of the spirit at the bar-tender’s table was diminishing. And quite common to any such youth parties there was a guy who got on to his ‘high’ quite early in the party, let’s call him Mr Hi.
Now comes the take away part.....
I was observing from a distance that there were clearly three classes of people in that evening’s party and once you read down further, probably you would tend to think that these three classes of people can be found in variety of situations in society.
One class of party-men belonged to those who were enjoying the party themselves, indifferent to the literal rise and fall of Mr Hi – let’s call them the neutral class, where probably majority of society members are covered under. The other class belonged to those who keeping their own spirits in control were inspiring Mr Hi to drink more and provide more fun to the party – let’s call them the fun class. The line of control between “fun” and “fun @ the cost of someone” was getting blurred when the fun class started finding rather uncommon means of enjoyment with Mr Hi at the centre of the dance floor. Exactly at that time I found the other and very thinly populated class of people - represented in that party by a single individual but with a big or ‘vishal’ heart. This representative was albeit part of the fun class initially but the moment he realized possibility of crossing the line of control between “fun” and “fun @ the cost of someone”, he distanced himself from the fun class to create his own class. With each passing moment, this man with a big heart was getting upset at the fun class for the fun that was being extracted at the cost of Mr Hi. And soon he could not resist himself to walk straight in the middle of the dance floor to help Mr Hi get out of the mess he had ‘unconsciously’ created for himself. I am sure there were many others in the party who wanted to help Mr Hi but just let that feeling or instinct go by or chose to turn a blind’s eye – a simpler approach. In fact some of the party folks reached out this gentleman to teach him to be indifferent and dissuaded him from ‘interfering’ in others’ affairs probably because it did not affect any of them.
What happened subsequently was not very relevant. For me the take away was to introspect into which class I belonged to that evening. And frankly with great hesitation (or confession) the answer came from within - the neutral class! This was just a representative situation of many other we come across in every walk of our life. We do not subscribe to many things from within but just let them go by. Many of us tend to take a short cut of letting go by things around us. We forget that what differentiates the mankind from rest of the living beings is the “sensitivity” about others and more so about the fellow human beings. We tend to follow a simple philosophy that let the messiah to save the society be born –not to us but to the neighbour.
Can you answer for yourself which class would you have belonged to that evening? Do we all have courage to change over from the neutral or the fun class if our conscience wants us to or do we suppress our instincts and follow the majority of the neutral or the fun class? I would want to ponder over this.....
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Mi Marathi
Today when we are on the verge of electing our new rulers to be sent to the Legislative Assembly, I want to make a fervent appeal to my Marathi leaders.
First, if the leaders are really interested in the well being of the Maharashtrians, they should not give them a fish; instead teach them how to fish. To come straight to the point, while it is important to fight to secure rights of the locals I think the manner it is done can be different. For example, today we see someone fighting to ensure jobs for locals. What do these jobs give; paltry salary which is neither sufficient for their own living nor for decent upbringing of their children. This leaves them in a vicious circle where the next generation of not-so-qualified children again looks upto leaders for another round of fight for securing jobs for them. How long we want this to go on?
Instead I have a suggestion and this is just one example and I am sure there will be many more such to practice. There are so many malls that are coming up in Mumbai and around. Instead of fighting for jobs in these malls and making our population forever a worker- class, can leaders insist that all the contracts in such malls – be it for construction, house keeping, maintenance, security, administration, be awarded only to locals. This will make locals the status of entrepreneur than of an employee and give more financial muscle power which will help them make better living for themselves and for their future generations. Hopefully these local contractors would employ local people thereby automatically putting curb on influx of people from other states instead of confronting them directly. I think this will be a better proposition than to fight for a job of miniscule salary and pushing locals into a vicious circle of jobs and poverty. I am sure there will be reluctance initially to take up such adventures due to years of mental conditioning of employment-comfort. But it’s leaders’ duty to change it for better. Ultimately, the business cannot be monopolized only by a particular community and we need to dive into it sooner than later. The leaders need to demonstrate this vision and show the power to change. We should target to create bunch of entrepreneurs than create bunch of employees.
Second, in the longer run, we need to make available good educational infrastructure. If at all we need to fight for reservations it should be in educational institutes which will create tomorrow’s well educated generations. There are so many colleges in Mumbai where there is reservation for a particular community. How many colleges have reservation for Maharashtrians? There are so many hostels in Mumbai where there is reservation for the students of a particular community. Where are the hostels where there is reservation for Maharashtrian students? Now, someone may say that legally Maharashtrians cannot get reservation in Maharashtra because we are not in minority here (at least as of now!). But we can very well go to the neighboring states and open colleges or institutes where there will be reservation for Maharashtrians. Why can’t we have hostels outside IITs and IIMs campuses for our students pursuing their studies there or why can’t we provide scholarship or why can’t we sponsor entrance exam for the coveted exams?
I think getting job is the end result which can be achieved automatically if the backend processes are put right and assured quality education is the backbone of all of that.
Third, I believe that illiteracy is the root of all problems. Today parents in rural areas prefer jobs to education for their children. This mindset needs to be changed and this can be done only by leaders as they have power and position to do this. They should play the role of visionaries to protect the future along with the present.
Today IB schools in Mumbai charge hefty fees. There is just a mad rush among parents to get admission to these schools. There may be nothing wrong in it. Let those who afford get admissions there. But to ensure balanced growth of the state can we ensure that the applicant for these schools are insisted to open at least a school or a college in any rural area and run it successfully for 5 years to be able to able to get permission to open one school in a city.
I think now it’s the time to build future generations than to think of immediate populist measures like fighting for jobs for the present generation.
First, if the leaders are really interested in the well being of the Maharashtrians, they should not give them a fish; instead teach them how to fish. To come straight to the point, while it is important to fight to secure rights of the locals I think the manner it is done can be different. For example, today we see someone fighting to ensure jobs for locals. What do these jobs give; paltry salary which is neither sufficient for their own living nor for decent upbringing of their children. This leaves them in a vicious circle where the next generation of not-so-qualified children again looks upto leaders for another round of fight for securing jobs for them. How long we want this to go on?
Instead I have a suggestion and this is just one example and I am sure there will be many more such to practice. There are so many malls that are coming up in Mumbai and around. Instead of fighting for jobs in these malls and making our population forever a worker- class, can leaders insist that all the contracts in such malls – be it for construction, house keeping, maintenance, security, administration, be awarded only to locals. This will make locals the status of entrepreneur than of an employee and give more financial muscle power which will help them make better living for themselves and for their future generations. Hopefully these local contractors would employ local people thereby automatically putting curb on influx of people from other states instead of confronting them directly. I think this will be a better proposition than to fight for a job of miniscule salary and pushing locals into a vicious circle of jobs and poverty. I am sure there will be reluctance initially to take up such adventures due to years of mental conditioning of employment-comfort. But it’s leaders’ duty to change it for better. Ultimately, the business cannot be monopolized only by a particular community and we need to dive into it sooner than later. The leaders need to demonstrate this vision and show the power to change. We should target to create bunch of entrepreneurs than create bunch of employees.
Second, in the longer run, we need to make available good educational infrastructure. If at all we need to fight for reservations it should be in educational institutes which will create tomorrow’s well educated generations. There are so many colleges in Mumbai where there is reservation for a particular community. How many colleges have reservation for Maharashtrians? There are so many hostels in Mumbai where there is reservation for the students of a particular community. Where are the hostels where there is reservation for Maharashtrian students? Now, someone may say that legally Maharashtrians cannot get reservation in Maharashtra because we are not in minority here (at least as of now!). But we can very well go to the neighboring states and open colleges or institutes where there will be reservation for Maharashtrians. Why can’t we have hostels outside IITs and IIMs campuses for our students pursuing their studies there or why can’t we provide scholarship or why can’t we sponsor entrance exam for the coveted exams?
I think getting job is the end result which can be achieved automatically if the backend processes are put right and assured quality education is the backbone of all of that.
Third, I believe that illiteracy is the root of all problems. Today parents in rural areas prefer jobs to education for their children. This mindset needs to be changed and this can be done only by leaders as they have power and position to do this. They should play the role of visionaries to protect the future along with the present.
Today IB schools in Mumbai charge hefty fees. There is just a mad rush among parents to get admission to these schools. There may be nothing wrong in it. Let those who afford get admissions there. But to ensure balanced growth of the state can we ensure that the applicant for these schools are insisted to open at least a school or a college in any rural area and run it successfully for 5 years to be able to able to get permission to open one school in a city.
I think now it’s the time to build future generations than to think of immediate populist measures like fighting for jobs for the present generation.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Nano
Most of you must have read about launch of the Nano on 17th July 2009 where Mr Ratan Tata himself handed over the keys of his most talked and arguably a revolutionary product in the Indian automobile industry.
I am certainly happy about Tata group’s efforts in bringing out this product affordable to the masses and thereby giving them the joy of a owning a car. I am also happy about all those who own or are going to own this engineering little-wonder.
However, the point here to make is about the way this launch story is being portrayed. One of the leading Marathi dailies carried a news report which stated that Marathi Manus has become the owner of the first Nano. Now, as I said earlier, I am certainly happy about the family who has received this first Nano and it may certainly be a moment of celebration for them individually or as a family. But I didn’t understand the ‘Marathi Manus’ factor in this story. Was there a need to get this Marathi Manus factor at all? It could have well been any other person who could have won the lucky draw which incidentally happened to be a Marathi Manus. While it is said that one should learn to celebrate smallest moment of joy in life, in my view, one should not over celebrate or celebrate with incorrect positioning of that moment of joy.
Many of us will recollect that as such there are quite a few trades where Marathi label is affixed automatically, for example, you take any Hindi movie in this country where you will find that the domestic maid will invariably be a “baai” - our Marathi Manus. You go to any government office, where the cabins will boast the south or north Indian nameplates of the officer but outside of those cabins will be a sepoy merrily chewing tobacco and carrying files or ordering tea, who will be our Marathi Manus. In fact sometime back, it was being said in quite a taunted and hurting tone by a section of society that - Mumbai tumchi, bhandi ghasa aamchi.
I reiterate that I don’t wish to undermine the happiness or achievement of those, whether Marathi or non-Marathi, who own and will own Nano. There is nothing wrong in owning any brand of car of your choice and affordability. I still remember my proud feelings when I first owned my scooter with my hard earned money. The point here is against unwarranted glorification. Why can’t the news report straight away read as Mr so and so has received the first Nano instead of tom-tomming about Mr so and so, Marathi Manus has received the first Nano. Is Nano is the subject matter of the news or Marathi Manus owning it? Its high time that we rise up to understand these differences and stop allowing people (at times opportunist politicians) to play with our sentiments.
I was certainly proud as a Maharashtrian when I read about the Marathi lady from Pune who conquered the Everest and I am proud about Sachin Tendulkar and Lata Mangeshkar and the list will go on and on. But we should be discreet in our celebrations. Those celebrations that may make us complacent should be avoided. One should always be careful of unwarranted praises and more importantly of those who give it. We as Marathis have enough things to be proud of and will achieve and create more to make ourselves and others proud.
The last thing that I want is my Marathi friend tells someone that he has bought a car and that other person asks him, “oh, is it Nano? And the worst still, I am waiting at a signal in my car and a passer by, a non Marathi Manus, in his BMW stops by and tells me – BMW aamchi ani Nano tumchi. Jai Hind, Jai Maharashtra !
I am certainly happy about Tata group’s efforts in bringing out this product affordable to the masses and thereby giving them the joy of a owning a car. I am also happy about all those who own or are going to own this engineering little-wonder.
However, the point here to make is about the way this launch story is being portrayed. One of the leading Marathi dailies carried a news report which stated that Marathi Manus has become the owner of the first Nano. Now, as I said earlier, I am certainly happy about the family who has received this first Nano and it may certainly be a moment of celebration for them individually or as a family. But I didn’t understand the ‘Marathi Manus’ factor in this story. Was there a need to get this Marathi Manus factor at all? It could have well been any other person who could have won the lucky draw which incidentally happened to be a Marathi Manus. While it is said that one should learn to celebrate smallest moment of joy in life, in my view, one should not over celebrate or celebrate with incorrect positioning of that moment of joy.
Many of us will recollect that as such there are quite a few trades where Marathi label is affixed automatically, for example, you take any Hindi movie in this country where you will find that the domestic maid will invariably be a “baai” - our Marathi Manus. You go to any government office, where the cabins will boast the south or north Indian nameplates of the officer but outside of those cabins will be a sepoy merrily chewing tobacco and carrying files or ordering tea, who will be our Marathi Manus. In fact sometime back, it was being said in quite a taunted and hurting tone by a section of society that - Mumbai tumchi, bhandi ghasa aamchi.
I reiterate that I don’t wish to undermine the happiness or achievement of those, whether Marathi or non-Marathi, who own and will own Nano. There is nothing wrong in owning any brand of car of your choice and affordability. I still remember my proud feelings when I first owned my scooter with my hard earned money. The point here is against unwarranted glorification. Why can’t the news report straight away read as Mr so and so has received the first Nano instead of tom-tomming about Mr so and so, Marathi Manus has received the first Nano. Is Nano is the subject matter of the news or Marathi Manus owning it? Its high time that we rise up to understand these differences and stop allowing people (at times opportunist politicians) to play with our sentiments.
I was certainly proud as a Maharashtrian when I read about the Marathi lady from Pune who conquered the Everest and I am proud about Sachin Tendulkar and Lata Mangeshkar and the list will go on and on. But we should be discreet in our celebrations. Those celebrations that may make us complacent should be avoided. One should always be careful of unwarranted praises and more importantly of those who give it. We as Marathis have enough things to be proud of and will achieve and create more to make ourselves and others proud.
The last thing that I want is my Marathi friend tells someone that he has bought a car and that other person asks him, “oh, is it Nano? And the worst still, I am waiting at a signal in my car and a passer by, a non Marathi Manus, in his BMW stops by and tells me – BMW aamchi ani Nano tumchi. Jai Hind, Jai Maharashtra !
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