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.. 

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)

My thoughts are mainly roaming around the political angle of all these recent happenings and trying to understand the Congress is playing very very smart political game here.. obviously there is nothing bad in it, afterall, everything is fair in love and war..

So how does this whole thing work? If you have noticed in this general elections, the Congress acted very differently from the earlier elections.. earlier, the party had to take the support of others to remain as the central government but this time if you see, they have made sure that at almost all the places they have the strong hold and they do not have to go begging for the seats.. so basically, they want to make a point that, in the whole India, Congress should not be depending upon anyone.. they are reaching out to poor people to get the votes.. You must have seen how Rahul Gandhi was visiting the small villages throughout the year..

Now, the game plan is, the opponent should be crushed and should not be able to stand on it’s own feet.. on the larger scale the opponent is BJP and the last election they made sure that, BJP is almost crushed.. and now they have stronghold in very few places… (Gujarat, Bihar [With JDU], Karnataka etc..), they managed to crush BJP/ Shiv Sena in Maharashtra too..

But still in Maharashtra, Bal Thackeray’s word holds more importance than any other political leader and that’s the fact.. so now how to break that?  Let’s start the divisional politics and bring in the personal wars in.. and then break the ice..

So what did they do.. In the first chapter, we saw MNS vs Shiv Sena.. they both started fighting to show the strength of each other, Congress watched the game quietly and laughed over it.. yeah, on the name of “taking action” they arrested MNS chief Raj Thackeray but we all know what happened to it.. so let’s keep that aside and stick to the main topic..

So, in the elections, you saw the votes getting divided, and it certainly helped Congress to win the seats very very comfortably..

But this did not affect the ties of BJP – Shiv Sena.. so now how to break that? But I think without pushing much, Congress just got what they were waiting for..

Marathi Manoos issue is back.. infact, back in full swing.. Senas targeting icons like Sachin Tendular, superstars like Shahrukh Khan, business tycoons like Ambanis.. Sena even threatens to stop screening of SRK starrer film, My Name is Khan.. BJP makes some statements which are not so in favor of Shiv Sena.. RSS makes statements which are again not in favor of Shiv Sena.. but what government is doing in this? Silent spectator..  Rahul Gandhi in Bihar, to get votes, makes some silly statements.. Shiv Sena strikes back on them in their own way.. Congress calls Shiv Sena leaders mental.. Shiv Sena sends notices to all theatre owners not to screen the movie.. Maharashtra government (kind of) tries to assures that no one can take law in their hands etc.. (Now that’s the different story that their statements do not carry much weight).. but in the middle of this, the war game does not stop.. sometimes it’s Shiv Sena or sometimes it’s MNS..

But if you notice.. Congress is not making any firm statements here.. they are letting these guys make the things worst, so people get angry and never bother voting these parties..

I am sure in all these things, a common man is least interested coz they are not bothered about what a superstar or a businessman is saying.. but after seeing these kind of acts by Senas I am sure, it’s hurting a common man somewhere and this is what helps the other parties.. the vote bank slowly moves towards the other party.. because Senas are not interested in development of Maharashtra, they are only interested in the communal fights between religions and languages.. (That’s what is being projected..)

So moral of the story.. at the cost of a common man’s sentiments, these political parties are playing games and dividing people.. I am sorry to say but we are divided.. we are moving backwards..

And yes, many people will say that, Congress is in power because it’s a good party and people have elected them.. my take is… people have elected them because they did not have any options..

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.

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…

But whatever it is, Priya Dutt’s visit to Sonia Gandhi helped!!!

Let’s start with Tata Sky – I got Tata Sky connections at my home, the clarity is superb, sound is superb.. infact everything is superb except the fact that, it can’t work in heavy rains. Once it starts raining heavily, the signal on the box goes off. Stupid call center engineers at Tata Sky are just useless. They just reply saying, we know there is a problem and our engineers are fixing it. When I asked them, when it will be fixed, their answer is, sir, we can’t tell you that. But I know the answer, it will be fixed once the rainy season is over haha Bunch of fools try to run the business.

Hutch Network – Apart from looting the customers, hutch seem to be pretty good. Their mobile network is pretty good but when it starts raining, the network starts causing the problem. You can’t call anyone, if you want to SMS someone, you have to try more than 3-4 times. Many times, it catches frequency of some tower which is pretty far away from your place and then, you have to stick to one place, in one single position, if you wish to call. Once you move, you are gone. The voice starts cracking and phone might gets disconnected.

BMC – haha, this has become a really funny thing. Every year they claim that they are doing something but nothing happens. Government gives them huge sum of money, they use that money for their personal purpose. For public, only fraction of the amount is used. And this results into, a BIG MESS. Water till knee height on the streets, traffic jams, roads full of potholes. According to BMC, there are only 25 potholes left to be fixed. But for some reason I just counted 100 potholes on street joining my apartment. Infact, there is no road remaining, it is full of potholes.

I really don’t understand this logic, these sarkari babus, they know that, their homes are running with the money that people pay in the form of taxes but they don’t want to give anything in return. All bloody bastards.

Aaah, I guess, I should stop cursing the government. It’s not gonna of any use.

So, the point is, be it Tata Sky or Hutch, they charge us a bomb, we pay them whatever amount they ask but in return, they can’t provide a proper service. I can understand if things stop working once, twice, thrice but here, it just doesn’t work always. (at the time of heavy rains ofcourse)

Oh god, we need a revolution. 

Shiv Sainiks attacked shops in Pune with shop names written in English…they wanted shops to have names in Marathi too…Now this is what again makes me think that “Is this what they call democracy?” These politicians are just giving dictatorship a false name of democracy…where a single party passes some rule without asking or taking public suggestion and in the end they say…the rule is created for the well being of public…

The same kind of thing had happened in Mumbai also…but I guess they did not get much success in it…

The point here is not just about naming shops in Marathi but its about forcing people to use Marathi everywhere….the names of stations and famous places have become name of Maratha king Shivaji…the statues have been replaced by Maratha king Shivaji….

Shopkeepers and theatre owners (Specially in Malls, big shop outlets and Multiplexes) are forced to keep Marathas …and if they fail to do that then “we won’t let you run your shop…we will attack on the shop…damage the glasses of the shop” this had happened here in Mulund…Shiv Sainiks had attacked shops in Mulund for not having Marathas as majority of their staff…so these kind of activities forced them to hire Marathas in the places where they do not belong….

I am not talking about the educated people here…I am talking about the ones who have no idea about the language “English” or word “Decency”..I have seen many guys in the theatre stalls more interested in talking to their colleagues rather than giving more attention to the customers…I have seen many guys shouting like road side vendors rather than having some decency…

So what I am trying to say is…to keep themselves in Mumbai…Shiv Sena should really get out of “We Maratha” world and face the reality….No one is against Marathi people but everyone should be given same importance because this Mumbai is lot more than “Marathas’ World”

Note: By this post I never meant to hurt sentiments of Maharashtrian people…It is just echo of my thoughts in the form of words…

People say that they play national anthem to develop feeling of patriotism in people but can anyone tell me…how can it help to do so? I totally disagree with it, people stand in the theatre not because they have patriotism but they stand up because THEY HAVE TO, they stand up because everyone stands, they stand up because it’s a bloody stupid rule.

Patriotism can not be developed by force, I too have patriotism for my country and I respect my national anthem a lot but playing the same every time when I go for more movies just develops anger against the ones who have set this rule. (Do they ever take opinion of people before creating such kind of rules?)

Just imagine you went to watch some adult film like Murder, Basic Instinct or whatever and before that our national anthem starts….it feels like you have to say Jai Hind every time before watching porn (or may be semi porn) lol

No wonder if government passes the rule to play national anthem before starting any serial on TV, just to develop patriotism in everyone…