Destination

Anjanna was waiting for the bus  since 2 hours. He had got two bags with him. The bus would be late today. He was worried and nervous about his void future. He touched his children's heads gently and warmly.  While he was bargaining to buy two bananas for his children, the bus came and  nearly 100 people thronged onto the 52 seater bus through windows, much before it could reach the bus platform. He rushed towards the bus door only to find a suitable place to stand. He looked around for am empty seat. All the 3 seater and 2 seater were already filled with extra persons. He confirmed with his children whether they have money for seven seater auto to get back to their village. The bus started . His children bid him good bye, but not cheerfully. Of course, they were eager to have the bananas(after months). The bus moved at increasing pace and he waved to his children until the bus took the main route, diagonally. When the bus crossed the town's outskirts and about to reach the Krishna river bridge, he lost into thoughts  of the events happened in the last two days of his life.........

.............

.............

As like any other farmer in the developing India, it was tough time for him. The draught hit the land of Krishna river for the 4th consecutive year. He could not repay the loan taken to invest in bore wells that do not work because the water table and the power voltage was always  low. He was left with no other option than selling his two bulls. He loved them a lot. They were part of his family. He was reluctant to sell them and tried many ways to convince his landlord regarding the debt. His starving children, ailing wife and mounted debt made him to succumb to the pressure . His prayers and rituals to God didn't turn into miracles and, finally, he sold them at a nominal price. The parting was tough. He took the money from the buyer and left the place with a feeling of guilty and despair. He had never imagined and could not digest the fact that his bulls would be butchered at a slaughter house. He had never experienced such kind of emotional pain in his entire life. It was more than a sin for him.

After walking few steps he turned around. He came back to the bulls and touched their feet with reverence and submission. He left for ever  and never turned back.....

............

............

He is still standing in the bus. He came back to the senses when the bus conductor shouted at him for ticket and asked him wryly, "Where?". He said dryly, "Mumbai". He was prepared to stand for 18 more hours in the "Bus to Mumbai", the route to survival.  He had two choices, one the Mumbai Call and the other, the Suicide call. Of course, it's quite common trivial to mention that his bag contained a pesticide bottle too. Anyway, he was destined to join the infamous, unknown and much neglected social group, "The Palamoor Coolies", informally labelled as 'Palamoor Labour'.
...........
..........

Anjanna returned home from Mumbai for Sankranthi festival, not to celebrate, but to repay only small portion of the loan. The drought intensity and the threats from the local money-lender added to his misery, forcing him to take his life, leaving his wife and two children. Thanks to the pesticides manufacturer, it worked.

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PS : 

1. Palamoor is the original name of Mahabubnagar district of AP which is notorious for mass migrations(10-15 lakh) and suicides of farmers (in-spite of Krishna river flowing through its heart). It is the largest migration in the world, from a district, in search of work and survival.

2. Palamoor has the record for having 53 buses, weekly, to Mumbai to accommodate the increasing migrations.

3. Nearly, 1/3 rd of the district's population is in migration and the irony is that two rivers Krishna and Tungabhadra along with 12 other rivulets are just mere spectators.

4. Most  Mahabubnagar politicians began life as labour contractors and were involved in labour export.

5. Villages of Mahabubnagar are just show pieces to exhibit in front of World Bank Officers to get  World Bank loans for Andhra Pradesh

6.  Solution?. No no no.....dont say that. We are not suppose to complain or urge for justice. The slogans 'One nation, one state, brotherhood, blah blah......' will fill our drying empty stomachs.

7. I am a native of Mahabubnagar district  :(

Sarfarosh - 77 Fiction

Note:- 77 Fiction infers to fictional writings bounded to a maximum of 77 words.

 Sarfarosh

It had got immense dedication and stern commitment.....

It gave itself for the noble cause.....

It framed new ideology and  perspective to reach the destination.....

It hadn't lived to see the results of it's sacrifices nor it had the desire to claim the fruits.....

Everything it had dreamt and worked for, has been hijacked since decades.....

It had not achieved it's purpose yet.....

All it has left now is few names......

Rajguru, Sukhdev, Bhagath Singh....

Inquilab Zindabad.

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PS :
1. On March 23, 1931, Bhagat Singh was hanged in Lahore with his fellow comrades Rajguru and Sukhdev.
2. Bhagat Singh was the pioneer of  Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) which completely contradicts with the so called development happening in India, since 1991, in the name of corporate capitalist globalisation.
3. Bhagath Singh was a staunch Atheist and had authored "Why I am an Atheist".
4. Though the initial path of the Bhagath Singh and group was that of violence , they had taken the path of Non-Violence during their imprisonment days.
5. We need not hate Mahatma Gandhi to admire  Bhagat Singh and vice-versa
6. Bhagat Singh was a strong advocate of Anarchism and he wrote ....
"The ultimate goal of Anarchism is complete independence, according to which no one will be obsessed with God or religion, nor will anybody be crazy for money or other worldly desires. There will be no chains on the body or control by the state. This means that they want to eliminate: the Church, God and Religion; the state; Private property"
7. Bhagat Singh also quoted  "It is easy to kill individuals but you cannot kill the ideas. Great empires crumbled while the ideas survived"

Farmers and Corporate India

Consider a family of 10 people with 1000 rupees monthly income . They have two choices.  

1. Everyone in the family gets a share of 100 rupees

2. Only 2 people get 900 rupees and remaining 8 have to share the left over 100 rupees.

Which choice do you support ?

Ideally speaking, in an Utopian voice, everyone of us will vote for first choice. Yes, It is easy to choose than to act. But, practically we have been flooded with the benefits and luxuries of fat salaries as the family of India had chosen the second choice of conscious partiality and bias towards the few lakhs corporate people over crores of farmers, since two decades. Ironically we are too busy in branded socialising and accumulating branded e-dump that we have never bothered about the remaining, who have been struggling for survival and existence, since 2 decades.

Rarely mentioned are the massive subsidies, now larger than ever before, for the Corporate sector. This year alone, the budget gifts over Rs. 500,000 crore in write-offs, direct and indirect, to the Big Boys(Corporate Sector). That's Rs. 57 crore every single hour on average — almost a crore a minute. Beating last year's Rs. 30 crore an hour by more than 70 per cent. (Ref: Tables 5 and 12 of the “Statement of Revenue Foregone” section of the budget.)

So, is it clear how India is producing Billionaires year after year ? How the Corporate Ship floats on the Fat-salary Syndrome? Who is responsible for the 2 lakh farmers suicides in india since 1997? The number is drastically many times more than the people died in terrorist activities? Isn't the issue more serious than terrorism. Is development at the cost of millions of lives valid, meaningful and Justified ? What is the meaning of having a notion of one country? We are living in the green pastures of golden illusion that we deserve every penny we have earned. But ...

• There is hunger, starvation and death of thousands of hapless farmers behind every corporate luxury and aplomb. There is a painful cry, exploitation and injustice behind every lavish penny we are spending in this consumerist  electronic lifestyle. There are mass hungers, starvations and malnutritioned child deaths behind every urbanised superiority complex attitude. There are many hidden, untold tragedies and suicides on every currency note we spend affluently with pride.

1. Why do the so called self proclaimed corporate tech savvy intellectuals and genius professionals need monetary concessions every year?(Rs. 57 crore every single hour in 2010 )
2. Why do pesticides kill more farmers than pests in India? 
3. Why do we conveniently ignore our indirect role in this corporate gambling ?(Oh k k ....fat salaries?)
4. Why do corporate people  get concessions and monetary benefits every year where as farmers get loan waiver only once in two decades ? (Party Funds???) 
5. Why don't the media talks about them(Oh! Corporate Media!)?
6. Who is exploiting and plundering the innocents in the name of globalisation and corporate capitalism and finally calling it development? (?????)
7. Why do the so called elite-modern-educated need a special financial platforms? Are they intellectually handicapped? 
8. Why a farmer, the food giver, starves and begs for the same food he had produced?
9. Who is ruling India as of now, ultimately, in the name of globalisation ?

 BTW, Why the tree of India is cutting down its own roots just because it has got colourful flowers and delicious fruits ???

Do we really care?
Are we ready to take the call of  social revolution and the responsibility ?
Are we ready for sacrifices and radical reforms?

We may shrug of these social differences simply by saying that we are not directly responsible for them  . Yeah, go for an easy way. Lets start blaming the politicians. Yes, we should even stop uttering pompous slogans like "Hamara Bharath Mahan". It is better to say "Mera Lifestyle Mahan".
It was shocking and shivering when the Pink Slip Syndrome stroked us last year. Imagine the plight of those volatile farmers who have been facing the Pink slips for LIFE every year, since 1991.

I would like to end  with.......

"We can wake up a person who is sleeping, but we cannot wake up a person who pretends to be sleeping "

..........
.......
Anyway,
Lets have Happy Hallucinations in the proverbial Frog's Well .
Worried about Hike?

                                         ------------()------------

Notes : (Source : The Hindu, March 1)

1. An incentive to repay loans on time — which millions of farmers cannot do — is being passed off as an additional subsidy to the aam kisan in this budget. And there is still an air of self-congratulation on the Rs. 70,000-crore farm loan waiver of 2008. A one-off waiver that comes once in so many decades.

2 .Yet revenue foregone in this budget in direct tax concessions to corporate tax payers is close to Rs. 80,000 crores. It was over Rs. 66,000 crore last year. And Rs. 62,000 crore the year before that. In all, Rs. 2,08,000 crores of direct freebies in 36 months.

3. Consider that this loot-and-grab sortie has been on for two decades now. It means that in direct tax freebies alone the corporate sector has had the equivalent of some 15 'farm loan waivers' since 1991. Then there's the indirect stuff. In this year's budget: Revenue foregone in excise duty — Rs. 1,70,765 crores. Customs duty — Rs.2,49,021 crores. Together with the Rs.80,000 crore in direct write-offs, the total nears Rs. 500,000 crores.

Relish - 55 Fiction

Note:- 55 Fiction infers to fictional writings bounded to a maximum of fifty-five words.

 Relish

They would have rice only once a month.....

I was there with them on one such occasion.....

They served rice on sal leaves with salt and chilli powder.....

I was anxious enough to ask what I should have the rice with.....

One of them told me humbly, " Mix it with the hunger in your stomach".

 

PS : 

1. The dark side of India's economic growth has been that the excluded social groups have been further marginalised, compounding their hunger, malnutrition and even leading to starvation deaths

2.  India is failing its rural poor with 230 million people being undernourished — the highest for any country in the world. Malnutrition accounts for nearly 50% of child deaths in India.

Women Reservation

 Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, ‘She doesn't have what it takes.’ They will say, ‘Women don't have what it takes’ — Clare Boothe Luce


Enthusiasm is not a reasonable substitute for clarity. The willingness to be politically correct has overtaken the directive to be politically sensible. Why do women need reservation? Taken purely as a demographic identity, they constitute the most powerful force in electoral politics. Every second voter is a woman. If she were motivated purely by gender, the majority of MPs would already be women. 
      
But women do not constitute a homogenous group, and all women are not equal. Just as men have the advantage over women in what should be a gender-neutral election to the Lok Sabha, some women have an in-built advantage over others, owing to caste or faith, or socio-economic factors. The logic that provides reservations for women also sustains the rational, logical and objective argument for sub-reservations. The principle is the same.

    Empowerment must be the right of all women, not just some women

  So, i  am asking all those who say yes to women reservations, including me, " Are we ready to provide sub-reservations to women from backward, downtrodden and oppressed classes within the 33% share they have won now? Isn't the real women empowerment constitute the representation of women from all social spheres and classes of the country? Just having some political and legal measures will not serve the real purpose, we need Attitudinal Reforms. We want to see a scenario where women would be competing against other women and not men.

Though i ended the post here, one of my well wishers suggested me the quote..

"There are only two kinds of people in this world..FEMALE and NON-FEMALE...which category do you come in..?"

I dont support this quote as it sounds irrationally feministic and it doesn't mean that i support Masculinism ..... I dont support any isms.... Is it mandatory that we need to take sides and keep on arguing which is the better half rather than reaping the profits of being a one single entity called Humans

The above quote leads to the contrary and obvious quote advocated by some groups....... "There are only two kinds of people in this world..MALE and NON-MALE...which category do you come in..?"..... It depicts Masculinism and hence the clash of isms keeps on popping for ever..... Why comparison? Why we need indefinite oscillation in Complex gravity?

I would prefer "There are only two kinds of people in this world....FEMALE and MALE". In fact i would go one more mile to say "There are only two kinds of people in this world..Humans and NON-Humans...which category do you come in..?"

So i vote for Heads/Tails rather than Heads/non-heads or Tails/non-tails
and i call it wisdomism which is meant to demagnify all isms....
Now i guess u may ask Why Wisdomism if at all i dont support any isms...? Any que?

Anyway, I strongly advocate the strategy "We should use isms as a means to reach the end called humanity, rather than allowing isms and end in itself and making humans as a means"

PS : I thank Rachana for her constructive feedback without which this post is less comprehensive.

Flavours!

Cold Winters...
in hinters
waking up at 4.30 am is really sweet...
but sleeping again with a hug of thick blanket is sweeter...
The sweetest thing to happen for ever is if it is a Sunday.

Scorching hot summer...
Standing since an hour
In a City bus wait
Hungry and angry appetite

Packed, tilted bus
Foot board Hangers
but still am into bus
Its drenching sweat
but still its sweet

In between the heat
I got a window seat
Isn't it sweeter?
Oh! Yes, am luckier

In between the journey
I got the Honey
Offering my seat
to an Old man's wait
Isn't it sweetest?
Oh ! Yes, more than Honey


Romantic Rains... 

Meeting a childhood friend, after years, is elatedly sweet.....
If it happens to be a girl, it is graciously sweeter.....
And if both exchange the rings in the next rainy, then its still sweeter.....
But, the SWEETEST honey can be, if they could remain as friends forever and ever.


In all seasons...
with all reasons....

Getting a job in a MNC, as a fresher, is a giga sweet...
Being offered an onsite opportunity is a bit tera sweeter.....
But, leaving the job in search of career, passions and dreams is the Uber Sweetest byte.


My 4ever Wish...

Having an elder sister is quite sweet......
Being gifted a bicycle by her is quaint sweeter.....
Sculpting her name on my bicycle, with pride and love , is the sweetest....
But parting with her coz of her marriage is damn hard......no its harder.......no no no...... its the HARDEST.

Chweet Secret...

Kissing a gal is curiously sweet...
If she kisses me back, its enormously sweeter...
But if her age is 3, nothing else can be deliciously Cho CHwEEeeeEetTesTt

" Happy UGADI "

Purpose - 77 Fiction

Note:- 77 Fiction infers to fictional writings bounded to a maximum of 77 words.

 Purpose

" Sir,  please have a look at our NGO's performance statistics in the last 5 years and it definitely deserves to get the 'Best NGO of the year' award ...... ", pleaded Satya.

" See, I have got better choices and options than your NGO. Please do not waste my time", said the Officer.

" Sir, all i can give you is five more lakhs ....."

"Hmmm ok ......  let me talk to the minister once. Anyway, your NGO works for ?....."

" It fights against corruption ..... "

PS : India is ranked 84 , by Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2009.

Newzealand ... 1

Denmark ...      2

 Singapore ...     3

China ...          79

 Pakistan ....   139

 Somalia ....    180

Time Travel

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 8; the eighth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

NOTE: Please bear with the post's length and I assure you that I wont disappoint you. 

I raked the hidden neuron colonies of my brain to clarify myself if had I ever wanted a time machine too? Actually, I hadn't really thought about that except immediately after being in the ambit of science fiction movies in HBO and a book by H G Wells. After thinking about Time Travel, many strange things were in the line from Evolutionary perspective(Apes, gods, 5000 AD etc) as i am basically an Anthropologist. Legends like Ashoka to Alexander, Aristotle to Chanakya, 1857, 1947......and hundreds of such strangest, wildest, funniest, craziest, weirdest thoughts got jammed in the stacks and arrays of brain patterns.   My imagination buffer  stopped abruptly at a critical situation where i got an  ambiguous doubt?

•   "Will me@2010 and myself being a child can happen at the same time through time machine if i go back to the year of my birth date?....

• Can i be present at the time of my birth as two persons(one soul???)?.....

The inevitable and incredible clash of thoughts and theories, logic and reason, emotionality and rationality, creative innovation and imagination, philosophy and science, fiction and genres......  made things more messy. Similar is the confusion when i opened the box of greedy future ahead of my contemporary living period.
 
So, do i really need a time machine? And my answer is NO. Let's say there's really a time machine, of course, a lot of people would want to get in there and go back to the past to correct the mistakes they have done, to make life better or make a holiday trip. To do the 'what ifs' , 'shoulds, woulds, coulds' can possibly and probably happen. As for me, I'll just walk close to the time machine,   I'll just pose and take a picture with it! I'll also say cheers and goodbye and wish the time travellers good luck.

If I'll go back to the past and change it, TODAY won't be the same.. I might not be able to meet the people I know today. I'll be sick no matter irrespective of what chemical coding is in my genes and chromosomes. And I might now accept and deal with it like I'm living with it today.. Will I be still this same?

• Today is TODAY because of the past.........
• Blah blah blah......
• ...........
• .....

Coincidentally,  Katrina joined me at Coffee Day.... and the conversation about time travel went on after few formalities between us.....Blah, blah, blah.....

Katrina : How about if the time machine can go to the future instead?
Me : I still won't ride on it. If I'll go to the future, I won't be able to cherish the present.

• So instead of time machine, I prefer a watch(Fast-track). 

• "Everything has a reason. Life must go on."..... (Is she impressed?)

Katrina: It is very boring and dry stuff you have written. Even though you dont want to travel , you can write where you can travel to convey  your imaginative and writing skills....Atleast some Fiction?
Me : Who said that i didnt write anything interesting? I wrote it with heart and mind in the most convincing manner.

Katrina fumed : Where?
Me : I had written it  20000  years ago . I have already travelled in time machine from my nation to this so called modern-civilised-developed-hitech future era. It is bit tough to perceive what i said.

Katrina pulled my leg: Haha, there was neither language nor script 20000  thousands of years ago. How did you write then ?
Me :  Am not from your universe, I came from the neighbouring universe with my Dog's permission(God in your universe). My travel to your universe is part of a "Glogging" competition in my universe where i have to travel in a time machine and have to write my experiences rather than mere compulsive imaginations. I was given four choices to travel. Past, Parallel, Perpendicular and Future(we have 5 time perceptions like you have 3 ). I chose Future and am quite elated to know you people. I love Earthians becasue i feel home here(Nice diplomatic statement right?)

Katrina : But how come can the readers know what you wrote actually?
Me :  Dont worry dear. The Earthians are quite smart. They will know it after few minutes what i wanted to say...... BTW, Katrina, where are you from? 

Katrina :  Am from a tangential universe called "Solomoron" which is inside the electron present in the outermost shell of an Oxygen atom  which is married to Hydrogen as of now. We stay at Marina Trench.
Me : Oh my Dog, Great place ...... Is that Perpendicular time travelling?" Any purpose for your visit?

Katrina : Nope, we call it "Paranormal Time travelling" and am here as a participant of the reality show "Morons " in "Em" TV......  When will you leave to your universe?
Me : As soon as possible . Before the  Black hole4.0 of my universe sucks my polar system, i have to go.

Katrina : Ok. Don't your Universe have Insurance? Where is your time machine?
Me : No, we have "Sensurance" ...... My machine is in the future (5000AD) as one of my friends dropped me here . He is on the way back to pick me up. And how about your machine?

Katrina : We dont use machines. We have Time Reflexes programmed in our brain chips. Are these Earthians are also programmed?
Me : Yeah, these earth suckers are programmed by  a "Social Programming" called "Hypocrisy". Anyway, do you have twitter, orkut, facebook, blogger accounts?

Katrina : No, but we have similar social sites like Cheater, Deceiver, Show-offer, Addicter and Imager . How about your social sites?
Me : We have Time-waster, Manipulator, Procrastinator and Distractor  etc...... I am impressed by your DNA structure. May i have your mobile no please, if you have any?

Katrina : Yeah sure. We call them as "Radiators" and my radiator code(number) is  "Radiator is for you and you are not for radiator". My DNA is made of Plastic.
Me : Ok.... Wow...Fancy number(code) !..... I will give a mister call from my "Tumorer " ..... I guess 'AirSpeak'  offers free roaming across Universes....... Whats your religion?

Katrina: I follow "Covalent-Bondism" religion. Recently we had a war as someone from "Ionic-Bondism" painted the structure of Water molecule without orbits. What is your religion?
Me : Am a follower of "i-me-myselfism" and my caste is "Egoism".  How many genders  do your universe have?

Katrina : 4 genders and we have 10 senses. How about yours?
Me : We have 9 genders but we order customised babies from "Kidzza Hut"(Buy one get one) rather than creating them. We dont have senses. We have dual Perceptions and...............
..........
....

Before we could say Bye to each other, 4 guys rushed into the coffee shop,  caught us with big nets and thrown us into a white white van labelled as "Hospital for Mentally Challenged, Hyderabad"

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.

Rainbow - 77 Fiction

Note:- 77 Fiction infers to fictional writings bounded to a maximum of 77 words.

 Rainbow

Chintu is a six year old boy who is quite good in pencil drawing for his age.

To encourage him , his mom bought colour pencils.....

One morning, he had drawn soothing, serene and beautiful waterfall in a forest backdrop and shown it to his mom.....

She asked him, "Why did you draw blue leaves and green sky....?"

He didn't say anything and smiled away to play Holi....

He is yet to know that he has colour blindness.

PS: This is my first 77-Fiction :) 
PS* : I jus wanted to convey the mental preparedness of a budding kid with special talents to a rare hereditary deficiency. I left it to the readers imagination through the unsaid words.

Identity - 55 Fiction

Note:- 55 Fiction infers to fictional writings bounded to a maximum of fifty-five words.

 Identity

Suryaprathap Sharma was supervising the near to complete Ram mandir in his village......

Suddenly, he stopped at a colourful painting of Lord Hanuman on a side wall of the temple and was in awe of the beautiful master piece .......

He called his subordinate and inquired about the painter........

His subordinate said, "He went for namaz"

PS : I wrote this age old utopian dogma on the occasion of M F Hussain's controversial citizenship as well as his pictures on Hindu Goddess.