So, here is the story..

I was on my way back home, driving the car.. suddenly, I see some municipality (government) vehicle driving very rash, honking continuously.

This pissed me off as government vehicles (any vehicles for that matter) are not supposed to drive so rash and honk so much. I was lucky to find a RTO, I tried to wave hand and ask him to stop the vehicle behind me but he did not understand what I was saying. So I ended up stopping my vehicle in the middle of the road, blocked the municipality vehicle, called the RTO and told him to get his license for rash driving or atleast ask him to park his vehicle aside so we can talk.

To my surprise, RTO guy talked very rudely and behaved as if I have committed some crime. I openly asked him why he was talking rudely.. he simply replied saying, this is the way we talk as there is too much noise around so we speak loudly. This was something really hard to digest but I did not argue with him much.

Now, I told him about the rash driving issue, so this guy, instead of listening to me, started blaming me of blocking the traffic.. (2-3 vehicles hardly). Though he did not have any answers when I asked, “how am I supposed to tell you that vehicle behind me is driving very rash and it needs to be stopped?”

So, after that point, I basically folded my hand and told him, “I am really sorry for wasting your precious time and informing you about the rash driver, I should let him drive rashly and wait for the consequences.”

I walked away right after that, he tried to call me again as if he is going to listen to what I say but I did not bother to respond as there was no point in arguing with someone who is not even ready to understand what is rash driving and what problems it could cause.

The point of this short story or experience is: I have seen so many policemen in India (atleast in Mumbai), they do not work for citizens, they talk to you as if you have done something wrong, they make you feel like you are the one who is at fault. I have seen this kind of behavior at many places. Not sure why they have such negative mindset or they are afraid to lodge any complaint.

But at the same time, I have seen many polite RTOs too. I think something needs to be done to change their mindset. It’s not helping anyone, they are getting the salaries from tax payers’ money and tax payers are the ones who gets treated badly.

Mera Bharat Mahaan..
Jai Hind

Image Source: Greasing the wheels by Satish Krishnamurthy

Okay, that’s one part, but they still managed to make a good compilation. I did not bother about the copyright issues much. (As it’s their headache)

Today, while checking some lounge music at Crossword, I found 2 albums pretty cool. First thing I do before buying the album is, I check the packaging date. Since most of the music labels sell old albums so I simply ignore those CDs.

So, their Lounge Session One and Session Two had June 2010 as manufacturing date. I picked up both the albums, paid Rs. 798 (Rs. 399 each), was kind of excited to listen to the music as I am a big fan of Lounge music. (Specially the Asian ones)

The shocking part was after opening the CDs. The 2 CD set of Session One had 2 different CDs with labels Lounge Bar II and Vale’s Nirvana Lounge 2. Okay, this was a shocker, the 2nd shock was when I heard the songs, the recording of the song was of sub-standard. I felt like I was listening to 128kbps quality songs. Very badly recorded.

I decided to Google around a bit to find the release dates of the actual albums. Lounge Bar II was released in 2006 and Vale’s Nirvana Lounge Vol 2 was released in 2003. This is case of open cheating, where music label sells you their old albums with just new packaging. Can you believe, they were selling 4-7 year old albums in 2010 combined with a new packaging and new album name.

So, this was about the Session One. I opened Session Two expecting some recent albums in it. But these buggers packaged older albums in it. The 2 CDs were Lounge Bar (2004) and Lounge Cafe (2006). Again same problem with the sound quality.

So, moral of the story is, they packed their old stock in new box and sold it to me. In other word, it’s clear case of cheating. Yeah,  I know, legally I cannot do anything (and I don’t wish to also) but ethically, it surely is a cheating. How can a person sell old stuff claiming it’s new?

But after this incident, I have decided one thing, I am never going to go near this music label and will try to stay away from other Indian labels (who are into Lounge music). Disgusting experience.

FYI, here are the images of the CDs

I am not a frequent traveler but I have heard lot of stories about how Indians are treated in foreign countries or how Indians behave in foreign countries; and my recent Thailand trip proved each and everything right.

I will give you few examples. We had gone to some park in Bangkok, there were good amount of Indians out there. I felt very happy to see our people there but soon this happiness turned into a major disappointment.

I was standing in a queue for the lunch, few other Indians were standing in the queue too. But the queue was moving way too slower than it should. The reason? Few guys, instead of filling in their own dishes and moving ahead, they started doing the same for each and every family member. (Who were not in the queue obviously). So it was like 1 person taking food for 3-4 people at a time. This was obviously not the scenario with all the Indians but yea I saw quite a few guys getting into this kind of mess.

The fun part is yet to come. Every table had 4-5 chairs and glass of water for each person. Couple of guys on the next table, got up to get some food.. 2-3 guys passing by from that place, saw the glass full of water, drank the water, kept the glass and moved ahead. I was like “WTF these guys are upto?” Everyone, including me, kept staring at those idiots. Some idiots even managed to throw banana peel on someone else’s empty table.

And this was not enough, while going out, waiting for our bus, few Indians in a group, opened up a huge pack of “chivda” (Indian snack) and started eating it as if they have never seen it in their whole life. So, after finishing their so called “snack time”, they left keeping the place dirty.

There were many other instances were I felt ashamed of being an Indian, even at the airport, they started making their own queues with 4-5 people standing together and some guys joining their friends in the queue, I even heard some saying “Apna he hai.. aaj jaa na”. The staff at the airport was going crazy managing these guys, there was not exception in the plane too. I saw crew members getting very irritated with these guys.

I had bee to couple of malls in Bangkok. The noticed sharp change in behavior of staff towards the Indians. No, they were not rude at all but they knew, Indians mostly come to the mall for the window shopping, try out few things and go away.

This is not just limited to one place. I have heard so many cases from UK, US and Canada too. Some funny incidents like..

In US, if you don’t put stamp on the letter, the postal department send the letter back to you. So our fellows, to save the cost, they post the letter without any stamp on it and in the “from address”, instead of writing their own, they write the recipient’s address and “to address” is their own address. So, when the postal department does not find any stamp on it, they return it to the person in “from address”. So in this case, the recipient is the “from address”. And this is how the post gets delivered to the right person without spending a penny.

There are numerous examples like this but the moral of the story is, we end up messing up the places. I don’t know why we do it, obviously all Indians are not like that, may be small minority but because of them the majority suffers.

I have absolutely no idea if this is going to be improved or not. Let’s hope for the best.

Note: By this post, I never meant to say that we Indians are bad at things, we are absolutely not but some of us certainly are.

Image: Caution Tape by Eugene Zemlyanskiy

And finally, the Bandh day arrives.. and what we get? haha a Bandh obviously.. I don’t see any rickshaws or buses on the road, around 84 flights have been delayed / cancelled, around 74 buses have been damaged in Mumbai so far… the trains services are hit in many areas…

The political parties claim the Bandh to be a peaceful one but I don’t see it around? I don’t see any peace in damaging the buses or halting the trains.. These parties on Twitter boast about how peaceful the Bandh is but they themselves know that it’s not peaceful at all.. The funny part is, these parties are being proud of Bandh is trending on Twitter but they are not bothered to read the content of the tweets… The Bandh is trending on twitter because everyone is frustrated of it and tweeting about it…

So, now after all this, what’s the reality? Thinking of a common man?

Well, the price hike is a really bitter truth and the worst part is, the government is not able to do anything to tackle it. The vegetables prices have reached almost double the cost than earlier.. (in some cases, the rates have touched 5-6 times costlier too), fuel prices have touched the rooftop, the movie tickets which used to cost me Rs. 50 – 75 max are now, Rs. 225 – Rs. 500, Rs. 10 popcorn costs Rs. 70 now.. Everything has become way too costly.

Now, in this, some of the prices have actually gone up due to lack of resources or say high demand but in this process, many have taken undue advantage and hiked the prices.. (e.g. cinema halls, packaged food, drinks etc..)

So, instead of doing something to control these factors, the political parties preferred halting normal life of a common man. They claim that, they are doing it for the common man and this Bandh will open eyes of the ruling government. But these parties do not understand that, the common man does not want all these.

It hurts a common man, when their one day’s wage is wasted due to this so called unwanted Bandh, it hurts a common man when he cannot travel just because of the Bandh which he never wanted..

The common man is helpless, the ruling government is not acting tough, they are just making tough statements but everyone knows the reality.. the opposition parties are forcing everyone to do whatever they want.. a common man cannot speak up.. the media is working more for the TRP than than the common man, Media is more interested in knowing what is Dhoni wearing for his marriage than focusing on the issues of the common man.

It was time, when these Bandh used to work but now a common man has become much more smarter than earlier, by doing all these forced Bandhs, these parties are making things worst and lose the remaining voters they had till now..

We should start working towards the solution rather than running away from the problem.. 

Okay, let’s get to the basics now..

Earth Hour is basically to save as much as electricity in a hour.. or in other words, it’s an initiative to save the climate change.. Okay, I agree it’s a good cause but how well can we apply this to India?

Do we have regular power and water supply at the first place? (Which I feel is necessity for the living) Don’t you think we should fight for that first? We are paying taxes to Government on time, we are paying our bills on time then why we are not getting the basic services?

In other countries like Australia, US, UK etc.. they have all these basic facilities provided by the government and they can afford to take part in these kind of initiatives.. but we certainly cannot..

Even after paying approximately Rs. 10,000 electricity bill per month, I get random power cut atleast twice in a week.. Thankfully, in our area, Load shedding has stopped since past few months.. (It used to be daily 2-4 hours), the power companies increase their rates at almost every 6 months.. The government is not aggressive in making people aware about other sources of power.. (Solar, Wind etc..) The water supply is not 24 hours, due to negligence of government authority, millions of liters of water gets wasted.. and in the end.. we face water cuts..

This was just about Mumbai, I am sure other cities and states are also facing similar issues..

So why not work towards that rather than following the crowd? We should do something about our country and then worry about others..

We have actually habit of following others blindly, another such example would be Aman ki Asha campaign.. according to me, it was one of the worst campaign I have ever came across..

At one end, militants in Pakistan making Anti India statements, the Pakistan government officials not taking action against them.. and we are working out on so called “Aman ki Aasha"?

Okay, let’s leave Pakistan aside, we won’t ever understand these political things.. Let’s talk about issues in our country first…

We see, fights on the name of language and religions going around in many states.. the government is doing almost nothing to control that.. At one end, the Congress government calls itself as secular and in the other end, they approve quotas for minority..

We don’t want to look at our own issues and we want to build bridges of peace between 2 countries..

We should actually start fixing our own system first before trying to fix something else.. Developed countries have done all that, citizens get all the basic necessities there, so they can afford this kind of initiatives.. but we certainly cannot..

We just need to wake up and smell the coffee..

But why would India welcome him? Well, because in 90s, he had painted Hindu goddesses and mother India nude.. and he hurt sentiments of so many Hindus or I should say, Indians.. but that was just his freedom of expression and there was nothing wrong in it..

I am sorry, but I don’t buy the bullshit of freedom of expression. I am game for the freedom of speech or freedom of expression but not at the cost of hurting anyone’s sentiments.. what was the need to paint mother India or any goddess nude? What was he trying to achieve from it? I am really not sure about it..

And, if he actually feels it as a freedom of expression, then why can’t he try with prophet or any other Muslim gods?  Well, he won’t.. he wants to live in this world

I have noticed that Indian media is always most interested in bringing up anti-hindu issues.. they never show the stuff on Kashmiri Pandits or other issues where Hindus are being attacked (or got injustice..) We are shown only one side of the story..

I am actually very much afraid by this “political” side of these news channels.. (Specially the English ones), these guys have got lot of power in their hand.. and they are misusing it..

I have nothing against any religion but the news or anything should not be judgmental based on the religion.. it should be balanced..

And I am yet to see that day..

Update: Following videos which will throw some light on the issue… (Excuse the poor guy’s English)

Yes, I am a pro BJP guy, I would always like to see BJP getting elected but at the same time, I don’t believe in following anyone blindly.

To be frank, in this election, I had high hopes for BJP, the way they started their online campaign was showing some good signs.. the good signs of stressing more on the development factor.. but as the day passed, the whole scenario changed and it turned into cat fights..

There were few incidents which I feel were given more importance and blown out of proportion by media and rivals.. e.g. being classic case of Varun Gandhi.. everyone said, his speech was inflammatory (Video), even he was slapped detention order under NSA. At the same time, Sanjay Dutt too gave in inflammatory speech, but no one bothered to care about it.. (I feel this was something not at all fair)

Apart from these issues, the issues like Modi as CM was also blown out of proportion.. Godhra riots ghost was brought back..

BJP tried to fight back with the genuine issues like black money, Afzal Guru and Bofors but I guess, these issues made no impact on anyone. You can read about failure of central government on Hassan Ali case here (Government cent forged document to Swiss bank) and also over the issue of Quattrocchi. Afzal Guru is still enjoying his stay in the jail instead of the hell.

I am not trying to say that Congress is bad but they are certainly not the good ones.. I feel there is some kind of layer which is between a common man and what actually the truth is. BJP is always portrayed as anti-muslim party and Congress is a secular party. But I don’t understand how can a reservation system be secular? There have been many instances where congress tried to play vote bank policy keeping monitories in front. Is it secular? But when BJP tries to talk about development, Godhra and Babri issues are brought back and BJP called anti-muslim party talking about Hindutva all the time. (Where BJP has clarified meaning of Hindutva zillions of times). Congress even went on to doubt the existence of lord Ram but at that time too Congress was secular party.

I am not getting deep into this as I don’t want this post to become more like Congress Vs BJP. But my point here is, don’t just follow any political party blindly, if everyone says Congress as secular party, it certainly does not mean that they are secular. We should not ignore the points I have mentioned (and many more which have happened in the past).

Now, coming back to the point of “What actually went wrong with BJP?”

• They started well with promoting themselves online, infact they were pretty early at it and they were doing good. But somewhere in between they lost the track, the blog never got updated properly. Basically they should have used online medium to echo their views and clarify on things like Godhra, Kandahar etc.. but they never utilized the online medium. And on the other hand, the young crowd always remained unclear about BJP’s stand and they always considered Congress as a secular party. (As no one clarified the things) 
• On the rural front, Rahul Gandhi did a fantastic job by reaching out to the people.. in fact I feel, it helped Congress a lot to gain more votes. At the same BJP did nothing as sort and even if they did, they could not tell the people about it. So, it was Rahul Gandhi all over.. (I would call this very very smart politics – I see him as India’s next PM)
   
• BJP never promoted young leaders. I know, they must have tried it but to the common people, they never tried. Where as congress sent everyone signals about Young leaders.. Rahul Gandhi, Sachin Pilot, Milind Deora are the best example.
   
• Anti Muslim image – I feel it hit BJP the most. Even though Narendra Modi did fantastic job in the development of Gujarat. Just check his interviews, this guy has got the power, he never talks crap but since BJP could not clear it out properly (as mentioned in the point 1), the opposition parties kept hitting them on the same issues. Some funny people even blamed BJP for Mangalore pub incident. BJP ruled Karnataka government took care of the issue and made sure that they (Ram Sene) do not repeat these kind of incidents. Even the Varun Gandhi issue hit them really hard. (I would blame Media and other parties for this), BJP clarified their stand but it did not help. In fact over the Godhra issue too, they have welcomed Supreme Court’s decision of speeding up the investigations.

So, I feel above issues have hit BJP the most. They need to work out on the issues from now itself, change the image of the party. Get more young people.. be more active online.. and keep 100 miles away from getting into dirty politics.

Now, apart from all these things, let me share my views on few things like Godhra, RSS and about everything which is there in my mind.

Godhra – I know, whatever happened in Godhra wasn’t right but if government feels, Modi or BJP government is responsible for this, then they should work on pacing up the things and make sure that everyone gets justice. (I am not talking about the castes here) There are many people out there.. (at least what I see on Twitter and other social networking places) blame Gujarat government for this and call them Anti-Muslim party. I suggest them to put more time in pressurizing the government to act fast. (We have seen zillions of petitions happening around) So we can have clear justice. Do not blame anyone if we do not have the facts right.

RSS – Some silly people call RSS as Indian Mujahedeen or SIMI of Hindus. I mean, it’s like WTF situation for me. On what basis? Do you guys even know anything about RSS? What do they do? What are they into? They don’t support bullshit of religious war or beating up girls.  They are far away from these things. Wikipedia has excellent article on them. RSS.org is their official website. (Check their archives section for their views and resolutions)

The Rest: Since, Congress has come into the power, I expect them to squash terrorist organizations. Do away with the vote bank politics, get rid of quota system, do fair and transparent politics. Focus more and more on the development front, think how Indian can grow. I really like the fact that Congress has got the most seats, so they won’t have to depend on the left or other parties.

So, that’s about it.. I am quite disappointed that BJP could not win but I see the bright future ahead for the BJP, they can learn from their mistakes and come out as party which focuses on the development.

Yes, I know they do help people in cases like theft and all but what about minor issues? Instead of solving them, they try to cut short and find the temporary solution…

Examples would be.. e.g. when you are sitting with your girlfriend or anyone in a area which is not so busy.. and it’s night time..

The police guy walks in, check your license and asks you to leave from that area as it’s not “safe”…

I don’t understand, if it’s not safe then why they can’t increase the security… instead nabbing the miscreants, they prefer asking common men to leave the place, so that miscreants don’t trouble common people and a common man doesn’t go to police station to lodge FIR..

This is the solution that they have… (Yea, I had faced this problem couple of years back near Lokhandwala, I am sure many of you must have faced this too)

RTOs (Traffic Police) too are equally responsible in this.. most of them look get “extra” money most of the time..

A year back or so, my sister had parked the car in no parking, they took the car and when we went to collect the car, they started asking for Rs. 1,000 fine.. we actually fought with them as there was no such rule where they can fine us for Rs. 1,000 (rules related to PUC or Car Parking), we made them read their rulebook and had to make them realize that they can’t fool people.. in the end, they charged us what they were supposed to (legally) – around Rs. 400.

2nd incident was today.. infact, an hour back..

The RTO guy stops my car, tell me that I have to take off my car’s film (on the glasses), the reason? There are  many illegal activities going on in the cars with the dark glasses.. I was like WTF.. dude, does it mean, people with cars with transparent glasses won’t get into illegal activities?

They just don’t understand the basics.. they don’t understand that, they have to work harder on catching those 1% of people who are into illegal activities.. not trouble 99% of the people who are not doing anything wrong..

I guess, I will never understand their logic being rules and regulations..

I am sorry but I am really angry at this point so my words might not be right but that’s the fact and we can’t deny it..

Couple of recent incidents forced me to write something about the policemen.. I am not trying to say that, every policeman is bad, but till now, I have not come across any good genuine policemen (Except from the Cybercell Mumbai guys, who left me impressed… that’s a different story all together)

Okay, so.. let’s cut the crap..

I was surfing some news sites today and on TOI website, found this article: Now, MNS goes after ‘Pak’ signboards

The article talks about, a shop in Mulund named Karachi Sweets, which according to MNS, is anti-Indian and the shop owner should change the name within 10 days or face the consequences. (The shop’s brand is almost 30 year old)

No, I am not going to bash MNS here… the real action begins when the shop owner goes to the police for help…

The policemen agrees with MNS and asks the shop owner to change the name.. some of them even suggested names like “Mumbai Sweet House”.. the logic? Well, according to police, the name will help shop owner to attract more buyers.. haha

Here are the excerpts from the article:

The local police were informed but, instead of assuring protection, officials said it would be "better” if the shop changed its name and avoided any confrontation with MNS activists.

Residents of the area share the shop manager’s fears. "Change of name could be misleading. Many may think that the original shop has shut down and they may stop going there,” one of them said.

However, the police have a different view. "We suggested that the owner should rename his shop as Mumbai Sweet House,” a Mulund police station officer said. "That will attract more customers to the shop.” Another similarly helpful suggestion came from the policemen who met the owner; they asked him to apply to the BMC’s shops and establishments department for a change of name on a priority basis.

Another officer admitted the police station had received a letter from the MNS, informing them about an agitation against the signboard. "We wanted to prevent a problem and advised the shop owner to take a quick decision on renaming the shop,” he said.

I am not sure where a common man will go? Police is not ready to help him, he is forced to change the name.. I think it’s time that people will start keeping guns with them so they can fight back in these kind of issues.. (as police is not helping at all)

Here is another example:

This one is about the movie Deshdrohi, which was banned in Maharashtra but later got clearance from the court..

But, in Mumbai, no one is ready to screen it.. why? Well.. do I need to say again? haha..

Let’s talk about the role of police here.. (The article is here)

Deshdrohi was to be screened in halls like Alankar in Grant Road and Nandi in Bandra. But Nandi had to instead screen Sarkar Raj. Sheru who manages both halls said, "A senior cop from VP Road police station asked us to avoid screening it saying it may create problems. I told my manager to go to the police station with the court order but they repeated the statement. Finally on Thursday we decided not to screen it. Some Shiv Sainiks came to Nandi and tore up posters of the film, warning us against showing it.”

Even Amar cinema, Chembur has been forced to screen Ghajini instead of Deshdrohi. Shabbir Sheikh, manager of the hall said, "The cops came here and told us not to screen the film. When I told them the court had lifted the ban, they said even if I asked for protection they would not be able to provide it as they were short-staffed.”

In this case also police washed off their hands saying, we are not going to help you.. you bow down to demands of these political parties..

I had personally faced couple of experiences few years back.. 1st one was when I had met with an accident.. I had to pay Rs. 5000 as bribe to policeman even if it was not my fault.. and on the top of it, they filed counter case on me.. (The whole experience was really pathetic and painful part.. will post about it some other time)

Another personal experience was when my car tape got stolen.. to get FIR report, the policeman asked me to pay Rs. 1,000 bribe and when we denied to pay, they kept us waiting for hours almost daily and gave it after a week..

All these experiences are certainly not helping to create a good impression of Policemen..

Again, I am not saying all the policemen are bad but if you look at the current scenario.. I don’t see any positive signs..

Okay… so, what is this no vote thing… well, according to section 49-O  in our constitution, every voter has right to register a null vote or “no vote”. It means, you have registered in the election process but you haven’t voted for anything… logically it means, there is no party worth your vote…

Now, according to this chain mail, it is mentioned that is there are 100 no votes against 100 genuine votes, the party with that votes will be barred from the election… and there will be re-polling. Which is NOT TRUE. There is nothing like that, according to the law, when a note vote is registered, it will be REJECTED…

Yes, some of the sites are saying that it will be counted as negative vote but I am not sure about this.. I just went through “Handbook for Counting Agents” (PDF file) on Election Commission of India website and it clearly states that (18.8), “no votes” should be rejected… so I think it’s as good as not voting? But again, there is no proper information this.. .negative voting looks unreal to me as I could not find any information about it on the official site.

Also, No Vote thing might not be as easy we we are thinking, and it will also disclose your identity, as you will have to sign some document for no vote.. so the guys sitting over there will obviously know about your decision… A blogger has blogged about this experience about “no vote” thing here

Okay… Okay… so in short.. according to me “no vote” is not a good option as noting is clear about it and there is no point in wasting the vote without any clear info on the rules.

My personal view is.. basically it was told to me by my dad.. ALWAYS VOTE… all the political parties are bad… but some are worst and some are worse… so you vote for the worse party so that worst does not win….

In current scenario, out of 1000 people, if 999 go for “no vote” and 1 registers the vote for the worst party, then worst party will win.. so don’t make it happen.. and ALWAYS VOTE…

So, moral of the story is… don’t be stupid and you should definitely vote.. we know what all parties have done… and you can weigh them according to your judgment but DO VOTE… Vote smartly…