Meeting Neighbours in Paris...

One just can see the whole world in a metro in Paris. One can see all kinds of skin colours and all kinds of hair colours sometimes even blue and green hair here. So it is not hard to find people of my brown color here. And as it has happened to me at various foreign locations in the World they would keep looking at you till both of you cross each other. In Paris also the experience was repeated many times till one young lad came up to me at the Grande lignes of Gare du Nord and said "Aap India se ho na (You are from India, right?)". Hesitantly I said "Umm. Yes". He continued "How can I make a phone call here, I am not able to find one and no one speaks English, I am from Nepal" One more important thing there was a super pretty girl with hazel eyes with him, which has nothing to do either with this post or what happened later. He said they are coming from Finland and they live in Finland. My immediate reaction "he should be a cook or similar thing in Finland". I helped him make a call and he thanked me and we had a small chat and he left with his pretty wife.

Few days back I had a real urge to go to a temple ( you know when things are not going that well you start remembering God a lot) and I found out the way to Radha Krishna temple in Paris. Well we can't say it is in Paris coz it is very far from Paris and is situated in a 'commune' which is rural. I enjoyed the kirtan there and when returned I met a thin guy. He asked me from which country I was. I replied him "India" in manner that don't you recognise. He said "I am from Bangladesh". Immediately I thought a Bangladeshi in a temple, must be a few of minute number of Hindus still present in Bangladesh. And no offense to anybody but I thought of the large number of Bangladesh "Kaam wali bai (maids)" who are there in Delhi saying that they are from West Bengal. I came to know that he had come to France by boat and had applied from political asylum from the Government of France and was currently living illegally. He asked me to pray for him that he gets the political asylum.
It was a Friday evening (sorry at 6:00 pm it is same as midday here in summers) I was in a busy metro with two of my Italian friends from Biblitheque François Mitterand to Paris Saint Lazare. We were clinging on to the poles in near the entrance and chatting in French coz my friends didn't speak a lot english. One of my friends got down at Gare du Lyon. After a while a rough sounding voice in a rural Punjabi accent caught my attention "Aap Iindyaa se ho? Main Pakistan se hoon". I looked to my left a guy with no so great looks was there. I had a lot of hesitance in speaking to him and finally I said yes. he tried to have a conversation with me but all I was thinking was of terorists and bombs.

A Shelf of unread Books

I woke up in the morning, sleep still in my eyes,
Saw my old book shelf and began to realize;
The books that brought have piled on.
Looking at their face, I had so much desire,
A spark of fire in my heart to read all, to grasp all.
But they kept on piling in my Big shelf.
Do I have enough time now to read all?
Can I know the knowledge of all?
I wash my face and go to my table,
and start reading nibble by nibble.

Difference between a Boy and a Girl...

I once asked a guy and a girl what is the difference between Champagne and White wine? Why is Champagne so superior to wine and of course costs more?
Boy: It is fermented twice and aged more...the special kind of fermentation makes it smoother and tastier...And the process of separating the yeast sediment is also difficult in case of champagne. It made sense and that is why it is costlier and better.
Girl: Well...Champagne has Bubblesss...and wine doesn't...
Ladies and gentlemen that is how boys and girls think differently...
Men and women do think differently and the combination is almost necessary to have a good team. It gives you a very diverse thought...NASA deliberately adds at least one female astronaut to its space mission.

To be continued...

What do you want after this? – May be an MBA

“What do you want to do after this?” This is and auntie of mine asked me. My answer was same as would be for 95% of Indian graduates hoping for higher studies, “May be an MBA” Her reaction was something that has me wondering and is the reason what has now caused the Global slowdown. She said "କିରେ, ତମେ ସବୁ ବ୍ରହ୍ମନ ରୁ ବୈଶ୍ୟ କହିଙ୍କି ହୌଚ?" which in odiya means, “Why are you guys becoming Vaishyas(Banyas) from Brahmins?”

This has nothing to do with the rigid caste system that is followed now, but the actual basis on which the flexible Vedic caste system was based upon. The one who studies and researches things is a Brahmin and one who sells things for profit(not actually producing it) is a Vaishya. I guess we all are turning more towards Vaishya. MBAs, the wall street guys, earn the maximum today. In fact there is no comparison between the salaries of a manager and his bonuses in comparison the labourer who actually produces goods or a research guy who develops new product and a guy in investment banking. Managers get so much for doing what. They do all the talking, how to cut costs, how to negotiate the lowest salary etc etc.

What do Wall Street guys actually do? They are into derivatives, speculative trading and similar crappy things like this; which is actually in true sense making 95 poor, poorer to make 5 rich, richer. In derivatives there is nothing produced, money only changes hands and it generally flows to the ones who already have a lot. I believe that all this has lead to the blow up in the economy. Smart guys today are involved in Wall Street (I-Banks) rather than cutting edge research for benefitting the society and world as a whole. We would get far more inventions and researches done if the smart guys had not gone to I-Banks and had gone for research. We actually might have cured cancer, produced fuel which does not pollute and might have fed the vast populations who still die of starvation. How can the society gain from speculative trading? But this is the hottest job and it draws all smart people into it.

We really should stop all this selling and buying things and start making things. Poor Mr. Obama is calling on his nation to do this, but it would be very hard for him to legalize all this as Mr. Obama will succumb to lobbyists.

Turkish Reflections...

Turkish Reflections…

“Going to Turkey, you’ll see burkha-clad women and men with beard everywhere”, this is what my friend told me when I was leaving for Istanbul. In fact I too had similar impression of Turkey. All I knew was that though they were a Muslim majority nation they did not like Arabic language to be there in their mobile phones and any phone to be sold in Turkey must have the six Turkish special characters (ç, ğ, ı, ö, ş, ü). I knew this because I used to develop mobiles for Turkish market also.

When I got down at the Atatürk airport everything changed. Istanbul looks and feels completely like a European city. The only difference you see is some beautiful mosques which they call ‘Jami’ (‘Cami’ as written in Turkish) instead of chapels and cathedrals. Turkey is democratic republic. Secular, to the true sense of it. People dress up like Europeans, behave somewhat like them. Step up to any bus, get on the Metro you are sure to see couples showing their love for each other. It is impossible to see something like that in India. All these made me really curious. I started reading the Turkish history. I read tens of articles related to Turkey on Wikipedia.

The Ottoman Emperors had carefully conserved the Islamic way of life. After the Turkish nationalist revolution and subsequent abolition of Caliphate, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk took charge of the nation and replaced age old customs traditions and belief with European ideas making Turkish national pride and ‘Kemalism’ much above the Islamic religion beliefs or the ‘Sharia’ law practiced earlier by the Ottoman emperors. Don’t expect me to blog about the details more, you can read those in Wikipedia. The startling point is one man’s dream was put to practice word by word as he had imagined. Even the Turkish script was changed from Ottoman Arabic to Turkish (an extended Roman alphabet to cater to Turkish sounds). An all these things did not take centuries to change. The change has taken really fast. From women with veils, people following Islamic traditions to 180 degrees turn to European democratic society. Hats off to the people here and hats off to Mr. Atatürk. If today Turkey is a developed nation and is not in a mess like the other Arabic nations including Pakistan, it is because of these changes.

More…

A beggars wish a piece of Bread,

And a roof over his homeless head.

Empty hands seeking work

The working seek a little more

They want their salary to grow

At the same rate as their kids

The Poor want some,

The Rich want more.

A king wants more than ever before

Countries want Oil in desert Sands.

Wives want gold in heavy bands

But delicate upon their dainty hands

Kids, tenants, and users of phones,

industrialists and the diggers of bones

You won’t find any who don’t want more…

Even a Lion would like a louder roar.

I too wish to play a bigger role,

More love and blessings to meet my goal.

The Journey

With a loud whistle the train started,

Slowly, its haven (station), it parted.

A Journey of quest, a Journey to end in Rest.

Ready to move through odds, fight them with Swords.

I sat on a seat beside the window,

And saw the distant mountains moving slow,

But when I saw the Bushes near,

They hurried away like sparks of Fire.

I see the past, the scenes, the places gone by,

When I sit on the seat in front, the Future is in my Eye.

Smokes from the Engine cover the Future,

When I reach there, they are beautiful creations of Nature.

I sit now watching the Rivers, Mountains and Sky,

And great towns and beautiful villages passing by.

Indeed, life is a beautiful Journey,

Not without Ups and Downs, Days Cloudy and Sunny.