A Horror called Reservations

I have been thinking about putting across my thoughts on reservations issue which goverment is planning to consider and keeping in mind the recent developments it has almost reached its final stage. Government is planning to implement 27 % reservation for the OBC in the govt. institutions starting from June 2007. The successor for this step from the government side could be to introduce the reservation in private sector as well. All of us have heard of what Azim Premji had to say in regard to introducing reservations in the private sector.

The protests for the quota regime has now gone into highest level wherein, we are hearing news about people dying because of fast which has been termed as FAST UNTIL DEATH. Numerous mails, forwards and smses are floating around. Petition forms on the internet, groups on various sites like yahoo and orkut have come into picture. People are doing the best to make government realise its wrong step.

Looking at all the reservation protests I can compare it with the protests done by Aamir Khan and co in Rang De Basanti. Well this is the first time I am seeing that people are deriving inspiration out of a movie. Must say Rang De Basanti came at the right time. But what is more important is to look at the level of protests which are happening and how they are affecting the youth of the country. It all started with the students of AIIMS starting, then many medical college students joined it, thereafter it started spreading like a forest fire and the protests started happening across the entire country. IIM and IIT students also joined the protests. But at some place's OBC people also came out to protest and they had a head to head with the "against quota regime" protestors.

This quota and reservations story also reminds of the "Aarakshan Virodhi Andolan" which took place in 1999 and because of which the schools, colleges were closed and the daily life was hampered badly. I remembered that time we were in Gwalior and it was difficult to come out of the house itself on many days. The schools were closed for a month or so continously. I do not know whether we will reach that stage or not but the government must remember that Mandal Commission took a big toll on it and It should not repeat this act again.

The worst part of the HRD ministry is Arjun Singh himself. He needs two people to get up from the seat. He needs two people to make him sit on the seat. He cannot have food properly and he cannot get in his car all alone. If he sits at one place it will take close to 15 minutes before he can get up. He needs callipers and support of two people to get up and walk. If such people are at the helm of such a serious affair, then I am sure our country is not going to go anywhere.

The issue of IIM fees took a toll on BJP and all their campaign of India Shining and all went into dustbin. It was a great mistake committed by Murli Manohar Joshi, then HRD minister. For the mistake of one person, entire party had to suffer the defeat in the elections. Probably Arjun Singh would repeat the feat for Congress too.

One of the statements made by Sitaram Yechury is the classic one " FIIs entry into India or their exit will not make an impact on the Stock Market. "

Well I believe he does not understand even the meaning of the term FII

My Acting Debut - GODAVARI

Last Friday Godavari, the movie in which I acted or should I say was fortunate enough to act in got released. We got the tickets on saturday and went for the second show. The hall was jampacked but due to the strong rapport sreenivas shares with shekar kammula we managed to get balcony tickets without any hassles.

Finally the movie for which we were waiting for 1000 eyes got released and we were all set for it. Our gang includes our entire project team like Sreenivas, Gowtham, Prasad Taki, Vinod, Girish and myself. The first shot in which a few of us appear is the one when the second song of the movie comes in. Its a pretty quick one but one can make out Sreenivas and myself with not much of difficulty. The next shot comes in when the last song which is the sad song is being picturized. It so happened that we got a call in office from Sekhar regarding the shoot of the song and he asked us to join over there. Fortunately I was sitting just in front of the heroine at the start of the song and hence I was the only one in that sequence to get featured in the movie.

The feeling is of elation altogether. It gives us a sense of achievement although we did not struggle hard really for it except for getting up at 6:00 am that too on a Sunday. The shooting lasted for about 4 hours on that day and then I realised probably how tough would have been shooting on the Godavari boat which the director had set up specially for the movie.

Afterall everyone does not get a chance to be part of the filmdom !!!!

Controlling the Thought Process

Have you ever wondered whether it is possible to control our thought process or not. Can we really control our mind to just think one thing at a time or our mind is so out of control now that whenever we are at home we think of office. When we are at office we think of outing with friends. When we are with friends we think of our life partner. When we are with our life partner we think about the future. So in all and all its never possible to think only a single thing at one point in time. Why it is so?

A few weeks back I had an opportunity to attend one of the orientation session of The Art of Living foundation which is one of the biggest organization in the world working towards humanity via spirituality. The person who was taking the session said that we as individuals do not know how to live in today. We either brood at the past or think about the future at every phase of life. He says its all in controlling our mind which makes us think, think and think only. As a child we think of growing to a youth, once youth we think of a career and a good life partner. As a married individual we think of good and intelligent kids. Once kids grow into youth we start thinking about their careers and their lifes. Once that is done we start thinking about the married life of our children. Then the last stage wherein we think about the grandchildren. In all this did we ever make an effort to think about ourselves at all. How are we doing, How is our body why is it that we are moving away from all kinds of material comforts, why is it that we have become weak and cannot have or do everything. All these questions can really shock us.

Our mind is a like a database wherein our thought process runs queries and keeps on analysing the data. In all this it creates relationships and they get entangled into each other so much that for a moment we forgot the main question of our life. Why do I exist here in this World? The central question which keeps on revolving in my mind now these days is this only. Why I am here. What do I do to get peace of mind and Where does the ultimate satisfaction for an individual resides. Can anyone in this world have happiness which is totally pristine and does not have any element of falsehood.

Is there an answer to these questions

A Torture called as SBI Card

I have been using the SBI Card for now close to 3 months. It has been a pathetic experience for me right from the beginning. Here in this article I describe my experiences with SBI first and take up BSNL next which is a little better in the aspect of providing service to the customer.

SBI Card was given to me after forced attempts by its agent. In the first place the card which was issued to me was not supposed to carry any of the Insurance premium as applicable. But to my surprise the guy who filled up the form for me ticked that column of insurance without my approval. When I shouted on him, he removed it. But the story does not end here. When I receive my card to my surprise I also get an addon card together with the Insurance premium amount also. First of all with SBI Card one has to activate it by calling one number which they call as the 24 hour helpline which is busy for the whole 24 hours in a day. Then those people do not understand for what we have called.

Afterwards the real trauma begins. The application has your date of birth wrong so you will not be able to use the phone banking. The internet banking for SBI Cards is not working for the past two months and its managed by GE which is really pathetic in the outsourcing work. The website shows this all the time. Soon the pain with the emails start. Its a really great pain to deal with the people on the email system. After atleast 6-7 times one mails the people out there understand the request. One day I suddenly get a call from Chennai regarding SBI Card Balance Transfer option and it so happens that after a few days when I decide to exercise the option, there is no person to contact to. In the SBI Card division one department is not talking with the other department at all. Gurgaon people have no clue of what the people in chennai are doing and vice versa. It took me close to a month to get my balance transfer cheque courtesy the great system implemented by GE.

Even the balance transfer cheque has its own clauses. If one does any shopping within the balance transfer period it would attract finance charges right from the very first day. This is not mentioned anywhere while the scheme is availed. The SBI Card proclaims it to be the best card available.

If this is the way SBI Card is doing the business it will be soon out of the competion. HSBC is perhaps the best credit card available in the market. The transparency in their calculation is really out of the world.