Ethnic Indians & Native problems

After a long lull I was suddenly spurred into action mode by a friend's blog on rediff news. This was on how we Indians like to heave ourselves on our long lost to culture, now distant cousins of ethnic Indian origin in other countries.
Be it a Sunita Williams or some one else. Yes ! we fall head over heels to welcome somebody who is of a different country and has only a genetic connection to the Indianness. This was disliked by my friend Raja Baradhwaj in his article saying that we should first care for our own countrymen and then talk about our ethnic cousins elsewhere.
Personally I feel that even though people have left our country they would very much retain the essence of Indianness because it is a subtle bond thicker than blood or genes. If we don't care for them they would drift more farther and after a few generations nothing of them would be ethnic.
I accept the fact that sometimes we go overboard to felicitate people even if they are least interested. A classic example being VS Naipaul who refused to call himself Indian while the whole nation was going gaga over his winning 2001 Nobel award for literature. He rebuffed this overwhelming gesture of we Indians and we as a nation were a flustered lot.
Many ethnic Indians play against us in various sports and games. More particularly cricketers of West Indies have a breed of ethnic Indians playing against us. Why do they play against us at all ? Agreed it is not war but a game but in India cricket is not game but war.
Now coming back to the original story from where it started as a discussion was the ethnic Indian in Malaysia being persecuted. Should we as cousins be bothered or not ? Or do we just ignore the whole episode as an internal matter of a third world country in SE Asia.
These are the times that we stand up and shout hoarse on top of our voices in support of our long lost cousins irrespective of their nationality and willingness to be a part of our culture.
If we don't do it then who else will ?
After all we have a history of intervening into the political affairs for Sri Lanka and losing a prime minister to the machinations of our own cousins named as LTTE.

Self Certification

I was rushing to drop my son for his SSC examinations (10Th Standard). It was getting delayed and I was negotiating my huge car like a member of the Schumaker family. I am a very conscientious driver and would like everybody to follow the rules of the 'game' , err ! road.

But the area where I stay happens to be the "most hazardous road" of the world to drive a powered vehicle. So that makes me a foul person spitting four to ten lettered epithets every 10 secs while I am driving. My wife enjoys to sit in the rear seat just to avoid hearing my chaste phonetics.

In the midst of the whole drama, my attention was caught by a 3 wheeler auto rickshaw. The rear of the rickshaw was written in bold letters " CORRECT METER". It suddenly struck me that it was brilliant piece of advertising. The driver of the auto had hit the right chord in today's world of consumerism where every body demands the correct service for the value paid.
No wonder if tomorrow we happen to see name plates displaying "Real Soldier","Skilled Doctor", and "True Father".
So much for the auto driver !!!!!

India Today

The headline in the newspaper was screaming "Noida wakes up to child killings"
It sounds gory indeed ! Why not ? A whole nation was rocked by the senseless killings at Noida. They are termed as the Nithari killings.Serial killings in India were unheard of earlier. We have a hoary history and heritage of strength,valour,kindness and exemplary character that volumes and volumes are written about stupefying the world. Where has all this gone ? Why are we behaving like fiendish ghouls ? We are putting Dracula to shame.
I shall attribute all this to a systematic invasion of the culture by a decadent Western influence which is short lived. We always were the epitomes of moral strength from times immemorial. Alas ! no more.
This is a direct fallout of the all the cheap trash shown on television and cinema. We are glorifying stupid behaving entertainers calling them stars and what not !
Let us glorify the soldiers of the nation who stand gaurd so that you can sleep peacefully.
Let us glorify the men & women who stand by truth all the time at the cost of even death.
Let us glorify all those people who care for human beings,animals environment..
But lets stop idolizing the likes of film stars,television artistes,dirty politicians who are no more than cheap publicity mongers.
Let us stand united for a more vibrant,culture oriented and truthful society who believe in "Simple living and high thinking".

A trip to Nagarjuna Sagar

Hmmmm ! Atlast I was free from the mundane chores of office work,client meetings and bosses' dressings rather dressing downs. I had applied for leave from the 18Th of Dec till the 29th of Dec. Very smart indeed to coincide it with Saturdays and Sundays.
Laziness had already taken me into its vice like grip and I was enjoying every minute of the lavish extravaganza called idle time. My apartment doesn't boast of a 24 hrs water facility and we have to get up early morning everyday to fill it into the storage tanks built at every conceivable corner of the house. This was the only irritant in my leisure.
I had actually planned to go on a short trip to the South East Asia or shall we say Singapore & Malaysia with my wife Sunita. This would have been my first trip abroad if you don't consider my visit to Nepal. Unfortunately my wife's passport had not yet come from the Regional Passport Office where I had submitted it for renewal. I could see the glee in my children's' eyes that we were not going abroad. Thus the trip to Nagarjuna Sagar took shape on 28th Dec as an appeasement.
We reached N Sagar at 3-30 p.m and rushed to the AP Tourism guest house. I walked into the reception with lots of air & dignity only to be snubbed by shrill cries of "No Rooms available till 2nd Jan". I felt a cold cramp in my already queasy tummy and rushed out to my family, waiting expectantly to be ushered inside. Rather poor me was hushed out.
A good Samaritan told us of a place called the Project House which was a nice place to stay for families. I made a dash towards the place lest I be turned away for coming late by 10 minutes. Luck prevailed and we got a nice cosy accommodation. For me the next 24 hrs was an absolute gastronomic delight at the local mess of the Project House. In between we all went around the famed project of Nagarjuna Sagar and had a darshan of Ethipothla waterfalls.( Photo enclosed is of the falls )
On day 2 after lunch we all trudged to the Project House and started back to Hyderabad.
Homecoming was quite irksome to find the Speedpost person standing with Sunita's renewed passport at my doorstep !!!!!!!!!!!