Run Delhi run

Saturday, 30^th October 2005, 6.15 pm, I was on my PC writing a post for my blog and also doing some internet research for my work, when suddenly my sister came all panicky telling me do you something there is bomb blast going around, I looked at her and calmly asked, “you mean?” She got irritated by the cold attitude I had towards her panic. “what do you mean, ‘you mean’? I mean bomb blast, terrorist attacks.” She replied rather repulsively. “Ok.” I said and looked back at my PC and resumed my work where I left. She got furious now, almost started yelling, “how can you be so cold blooded, there are people dying, don’t you have any sympathy for them. How can you just go on blogging and surfing after you hear a news like that.

She has a point. I am ruthlessly cold to the latest bomb blast in Delhi. I don’t know why. I haven’t yet called up my friends to find out about them. I didn’t rush to the TV and start following everything that every biggies in town had to say about the incident.

When terror attacks we run for our lives. If a bomb happens to blast on my head I would run for my life no one else would run on my behalf. And so long as its not my life I don’t care. I know those who are running for their lives right now wouldn’t have cared either, had it not been their lives. Diwali, Eid…Tst Tst such a celebration time and such a tragedy. Well those who were about to celebrate didn’t bother for the ones who don’t even have blankets to protect them from the forthcoming cold when they live under the sky as their roof after they have lost their. Did they have a silent Dandiya in memory of the Qauke victims, a colorless Holi in memory of the Tsunami victims. The day Government of India Announces “ A day’s salary shall compulsorily go to the quake victims” one should see the long face I would make, you would make, these people who lost out all the fun of diwali due to the blast, would have made, had they been not busy running for their lives. Every year the Government appeals “Please have a pollution free diwali, who gives a damn. “Say no to crackers, child labour goes in it.” Not my child. Crores of money is senselessly burned on the occasion of Diwali. Some thousands of people die to do drunk driving. Women get raped on the occasion of Holi every year. Celebrations. What an Irony. What good is my concern gonna do to change the Irony? I stay in Dwarka. Do I or my sister who is being all-sympathetic, have the guts to rush to Sarojini Nagar and join hands with the rescue workers to pull out the bodies? We are not even gonna move out of the safety of our home as long as the terror knocks on our door.

Has anyone ever wondered what’s celebration anyway. Is it enough that a day of the calendar is being designed for celebration or do we need a good reason to celebrate.

I don’t celebrate any festival. When I am with my friends I eat, drink, sing and dance and have a time hell better than any celebrations. When I am alone any festival is just another day for me.

Run Delhi run.
Not for Hutch, but for your lives.
I too would run when it’s my turn.

Legalizing sex trade

Cut out the sleaze

Finally something that might help in reducing the child prostitution and exploitation of sex workers. Additionally we may also get More tourism like Bangkok and Amsterdam.

Another implementation failure

Right to Information Act stumbles in Mumbai

The right to information has been created with the best of intentions, but this again seeems to be going to become an implementation failure. This is also an example why the implementation is much more important than just creating the rules/rights. Once the initial euphoria dies down, this will again be a good law that did not work..

This reminds me of the rule that autorickshaw drivers should run on meters...but we know how many of them actually run by meters in delhi. Many just plainly refuse to take you. The few complaints that were made on the issue, even fewer led to challans as the initial owners had sold their autos to another third party since then.

Passport office troubles

Applied for a passport about 4-5 months back, promptly the police office came for police verification after that, took his money and sent a positive report back. The passport office tells the status online and on phone and SMS etc. Normal time for delivery of passport is 5 weeks. Nobody picks the phone and the SMS to check the status does not gets delivered. The online status for months shows that there is delay because of unavoidable circumstances and the passport will be dispatched in a week. That week never comes. On approaching the passport office personally there is a huge line on the general enquiry and after the long wait, the same answer, we will deliver it in one month...NO EXPLANATION FOR THE DELAY. incase that’s not fine, go and talk to the public relations officer (PRO). The PRO has a line of 50-60 other people..

If the passport office is short of people why don’t they hire more??? Why for basic things like a passport a person has to be troubled so much. There is a colossal waste of man hours standing in queues. If they need to charge more for a passport then rates should be hiked, but atleast a decent service should be provided. Just try going to any public office that deals with the common man and there are same issues. One has to wait for hours to get small peice of info. They are more than happy to put objections than to find ways to do the things. The email id's of the officers on the website never get a response..

its so frustrating sometimes.....arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Commandments for politicians

Sonia Gandhi's 18 commandments to party bosses

This news came as a complete surprise for me. A shocker infact. Makes me rethink about Sonia and her role in Indian politics. Without a doubt, she has the power to change the face of India and Indian politics. She can promote good people and sideline the selfish and shady ones. Is she trying to so this slowly? Is this the first step?

I also could not find a reason what motivated her to come out with these guidelines. As always, the toughest and most ignored part will be implementation.

Let's Get Dirty...

Okay!
Ever since this community blog started, my name has been their on the column on right hand side of this webpage as a contributor. However today is going to be the first time when I am really going to contribute to this blog. There have been miscellaneous reasons why I could not post here earlier, but I’m not going to talk about them here.

This blog is for a different purpose.

A personal blogger like me who has always written about how my weekends passed or any incident in my life, or sometimes I have even gone ahead with posting my terrible poems on my blog. But even a so called *non-intellectual* blogger like me does think about the issues that our society, our locality, our city, our nation and our world faces. And this is an attempt to voice what i feel.

We all have so many expectations from everyone around us. How we want our city to be clean? How we want our society to be open minded and peace loving? And how we crib about the dirtiness all around us.. Be in people's thinking, be in their actions, and be in politics.

We crib, we discuss about this dirtiness, staying away from it and staying clean. We have been doing that for all our lives, and we have not seen anything improving because of our cribbing. The reason is that things won’t improve just by cribbing and complaining. We need to do something to make changes happen. We can’t expect someone else to take note of our complaints and give us a cleaner world to live in.

This blog is an attempt to make a difference. Only time will tell how successful this attempt becomes. But I am glad we are at least making an attempt.

In order to clean the dirt, we'll have to get down from our high clean platforms and get dirty ourselves. So come "Let’s Get Dirty" and clean this world off its evils, off its problems, off its prejudices.

All of you who want to be a part of this are welcome to join. Your posts, your comments are most welcome.