State emigration

The last three decades, constructive people and people who had learnt something and wanted to accomplish something out of life went away in ever-increasing number to other parts of India or the world. There was an exodus to those areas where so called communism or socialism had not touched or corrupted the minds of the people and had not established it ugly head.



Architects, engineers, chemists, doctors, teachers, managers of works and mills, and all kinds of skilled workmen, emigrated from the stagnated swimming pool. These people envisaged themselves to be something better, and they could not bear the thought of getting only the same reward as the straightforward honest day labourer.


These people were in luck since West Bengal was a state and was under the Indian Constitution. Otherwise we would have witnessed an emigration ban, where a diktat would have been issued against all emigration without the permission of the State Govt. . . . . Senior Citizens, people beyond work, infants and physically or mentally challenged people would have been allowed to go away. The right to emigrate would not have been approved to strong and healthy people, who would be under the obligation of the State Govt. for their education, work and life, so long as they would be under the working age.


Under these state of affairs the State Govt. would harshly carry out measures deterrent to emigration. Troops would be employed in all exit points. The border patrols would be given directives to brusquely shoot down all turncoats.


What a revolution it would be – Not much different from the era of slaves that were deemed economical and viable – depriving the citizens the liberty to choose their profession or location, amplified work hours, strict rationing, enormous military expenditure, corporal punishment, forbidding them to quit, splitting up the family system, imposing and establishing Draco’s rigorous, harsh, severe and cruel laws.

It would have been akin to raising the Berlin Wall, where a movement was founded primarily to liberate the worker. The guns were then turned on the very people that the authorities vowed to save.

What a revolution!

The big MNC called Earth

☼ Thanks to the historians, The biologists, the psychologist, the archaeologists, the anthropologist, and other branches of scientists, we are now beginning to appreciate and understand the universe a little bit with our new found knowledge, which painfully we have gathered in the last few hundred years.

The earth is like a big MNC where a CEO has been appointed. That CEO is man. Man is in charge of the biggest business – that of the business of evolution. Whether man wanted to be appointed as the CEO is not the matter, the fact remains unchanged that he cannot rebuff the job. Whether he wants the job or not, whether he is conscious of what he is doing or not - he is as a matter of fact influencing the future course of evolution on this earth. It is predestined and this providence is unavoidable. He has to realize this and start believing in it.

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☼ All existentialists are of the belief that the human life has been attached with wretchedness in one form or the other – poverty, starvation, disease, ill health, over work, cruelty, oppression, stress, strained relationship, trauma, anxiety, agony, etc. Life has generally been nasty, brutish and very short. The great majority have died young. The have endeavoured to alleviate their misery by means of optimism and their ethics.

The problem is that their optimism has not been vindicated and their ideals and ethics have by and large failed to match up with reality.

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☼ The meaning and purpose of religion in our society is to deal with the problems of fate – the providence of the human specie, of our societies, of the different countries and the world.

Religion gives rise to the concept of god hypothesis. Religion and god has been erected by man to help him understand what our existence is all about. Man forthrightly have announced that god is the ultimate reality. By doing so he not only cheats himself but also becomes very indistinct, helpless and futile.

A day will arrive when this god hypothesis will shortly draw closer to an end and will scientifically not be accepted. It will become an intellectual and moral burden to our thoughts. It will no longer convince and comfort us. Soon after disposing off the theory, it will bring us a deep sense of relief. Discarding the theory of god does not mean that we will abandon religion and morality. Once we dispose of the outdated ideological concept, we may then go ahead by constructing something more valuable to take its place

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The Road Less Travelled

☼ A day would eventually arrive where non of us human species would have to labour for more than 2 days a week…It is implausible that the human specie can chomp through this much and no more.. That point would never come when the entire world fabricates goods that we require in two days and that we would have to restrict our production of merchandises and turn our concentration to a bigger predicament of what to do with our newly established freedom !!!

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☼ What is natural? And what is supernatural? With the deluge of knowledge supernatural can be flushed away when an understanding of the natural process takes place. One day, it would be unfeasible for an educated, intelligent person to believe in a god as it is now so hard to believe, that the earth is flat, the impossibility of reaching the moon……or death is due to some black magic and witchcraft. Then the day would come when the god theory would no longer be a practical way out to interpret or understand nature and even may be an obstacle to clarity when we would try to understand or interpret nature.


The god theory would then stop to be looked upon as a ruler and would fade away from the lives of people.

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☼ You will one day come to realize that one day you will come to a point just like Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” which says:


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.



You will then realize and choose in the blueprints of your thought - the path of evolution rather than revolution; that there is neither the need nor the room for the super natural; that the earth was not created, but evolved; that animals and plants too evolved like us human beings with our minds, souls, brains and bodies. And that religion did not come out of revolution, but via evolution.

You will then after reaching those two diverged roads take a walk on the road less travelled and that will make the difference between today and tomorrow


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Compliance by coercion

It’s census time. I received an intercom call from the security chap below my building and sure enough a census worker arrived at my door. I was thinking of politely refusing to answer her question.

I wanted to resist the application of aggression which the Govt. has adopted. I always face a catch-22 situation on how to re-act in accordance with the Govt. mandate and how best to oppose their aggressive nature.

One may just decline to comply and face the financial and legal penalties in a way Gandhiji and Martin Luther King did. I hold them in very high regard and I am in awe when I see them as believers of such peaceful non-cooperation.

My act of non-cooperation may lead me to prison. It would be unjust, but then the true place of a just man is a prison. But then it would be a peaceful revolution.

A second choice would be to flee the country and seek refuge in a country where such obligations are less arduous. Escape has long been a popular approach of seeking to avoid the brutality of war. There is a lot of sacrifice that needs to be done though, when one leaves one’s country, including the loss of home, separation from family, relatives and friends.

A final preference would be to comply; accepting the fact that compliance may assist the Govt. in its various aggressive activities.

Believing in liberty, freedom and such other wonderful words are nothing but being naive. One has to compromise and comply with the Govt. mandates and interacting with Govt. agencies, wherever harsh punishments are meted out. There is no point in becoming a martyr. You will need to pay your tax or else…..

Not much has changed since Draco the first Greek legislator of Athens replaced all prevailing systems and enforced his own harsh laws. There is no such thing as peaceful tax protest. All Govt. actions eventually resorts to the employment or intimidation of aggression. Whenever the Govt. intervenes, it leads to violent action or a threat of such action. The Govt. has full of armed men consisting of Local Police, CRPF, BSF, Soldiers, Prison Guards and non armed guys like the hangmen. The indispensable characteristic of a Govt. body is to exert force of its diktat by beating, killing and imprisoning.

Conducting a census means using up considerable tax revenue. I am sure crores of Rupees are being spent to pay lakhs of workers, who have been diverted from their productive work conducting this 2010, snooping on our lives and on Indians such as me who wishes nothing but to be left in peace

We live in two worlds

It’s a reality that we live in two worlds. One world enforced by our Govt. and the other world that we assume in our actual life.

A friend of mine one day came to my house early in the morning. I was having coffee. I offered him a cup.

He said, “thank you”

I asked a supplementary question, “Should I pour some whiskey in that coffee?

He looked shocked. He was under the belief that drinking hard liquor in the morning was inappropriate and unbecoming. It was not a social norm. It was a habit one should conceal. It was a custom of the lower class. It was dangerous. It was immoral.

But are any of these hypotheses correct? There is already a prohibition in Gujurat. Most cities and states have already been imposed by our Govt. the timings one can have alcohol in the bar. The Govt. still think we are in schools and we do not know what is good or bad for us. Meanwhile the consumption of alcohol is on the rise. It is very clear that we live in two worlds.

I am sure my friend was shocked by my offer to add whiskey in his morning cup of coffee. What may not have gone to his head was my presumption that I was among the rebels against such frivolous prevailing culture – that I have in mind to reject the Govt.’s decree and create my own custom. This would be a fantastic model to live a full life. He could not see beyond a point that just because the Govt. authorized or de-regularizes certain things and prohibits others does not mean that I must follow or even endure the official roadmap of my life.

I consider myself a bit cultivated, educated and scholarly, hence it becomes a bit of an aristocrat custom to reveal some lost history with a sense of option and freedom. I am trying to create a world that does not exist and adopting a new way of life. I am trying to live a life outside the dictate laid down by our cultural police. No wonder some of us really believe in Art which is imagining the existence of some form of possibility in our mind and then endevouring to make it a reality. Literature, movies, culture, music and the arts are cultivated and give us the education and insight to create our own world.

The fact maybe that drinking liquor in the morning could be unthinkable since this could contribute to a less productive life. But one need not be sober during weekends or if you are celebrating some occasion. What could be wrong here if I offer my friend coffee touched with some whiskey in the morning?

The Strugglers

Mumbai. Bollywood. The Dream City. The El Dorado of many an Indian. They all come here either like bees attracted to their hive, or dancing, crawling, as if some Piper’s tune had enticed them – like rats.

Everybody wants to make it big here, to be glimpsed, to be heard, to be adored, to be held in awe. Mumbai Bollywood has a particular word – These guys are called ‘strugglers’. They struggle – till they ‘make it’.

The problems with these strugglers are that even after they ‘make it’ – they still keep struggling. Look at our Bollywood superstars. Some have ‘made it’ and some have aged, [while another ex superstar wants to come back to the industry and can now be branded an official struggler] – but their struggle goes on. They still jostle for their space. Or look around for those Corporate Honchos and those who have at the least managed to buy an apartment here and drive around in their cars, putting in a number of years in their office. Strugglers! You will see them rushing out of their house in the morning and coming late in the night. Struggling – (not to make both ends meet) but to get that second house, that second car, to be recognized. Not that there is something drastically wrong with their intention – but their never ending struggle is a wonder.

Why do these people struggle? Why can’t they stop even after achieving what they had set out to do? Why can’t they come out of the shackles and live a free life? Why do they have to prove and keep proving that they are ‘somebody’? Why do they have to establish their existence? Why can’t they just live their life after their achievements? How much is enough to make them stop being a struggler and live a free live? Is it insecurity that drives them on?

Obliterate the illiterate

۞ Money is necessary. No one questions that (at the least) today. Everybody loves money. But love for money can be either for possession or it can be used as a means to enjoy and appreciate and realize the realities of life. And as one grows older, creation and construction reduces and the love for money and security increases.

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۞ Religion and business may be an integral part of existence. But why does man have to be subordinated by the concept and practice of religion and business? Why shouldn’t it be the other way round? Perhaps both have created classes of the masses, and hence the overwhelming dominancy of religion and business. The world could have been more delightful, had there been only 2 classes: the literate and the illiterate, and all efforts would go to reduce and obliterate illiteracy.

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۞ Someone asked me how war could ever be stopped. I felt that stopping war was impossible. There is no cure for this disease. Yet to others war is like a cleanser. Can war be avoided? Is war necessary? Can it end the misery, pain, suffering and anguish of humanity? If yes, then let there be war and let war act like a sterilizer.

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۞ What is all this hue and cry of ‘making it in life’? We are all so confused in our existence that we do not seem to realize that after our death, life will continue, as usual. Everything is this world will continue as it were. Everything will occupy the same place as it were. All the traces of existence will die out little by little and the empty space that was left behind will once again be filled up quietly.

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Of IPs, Professors and Universities

Intellectual Property has been explained as a distinct category of creations of the mind for which property rights are recognized. Under IP regulation, proprietors are granted certain exclusive right to an assortment of intangible assets, such as musical, literary, artistic works, discoveries and invention, word, phrases, symbols and designs. Common types of IP include copyrights, trademarks, patents, and industrial design right and trade secrets in some jurisdictions.

That’s the legal or official description.

Now let’s mull over the case of celebrated professors in those renowned universities. Some of them will soon start taking their IP rights very seriously and will initiate a copyright claim to the ideas that they spread in their classrooms. Their take: “I, the professor own my ideas and these may not be distributed without my permission”

The elementary and indispensable predicament here on this take is how the heck do you put into effect IP rights and support the idea of a university which after all is all about teaching and distributing ideas to all. The concept appears exceedingly bizarre.

The idea looks as if one is charging for the education and not for the degree. One can either distribute ones idea freely in the classroom or enter into a contract with the students somewhat in the following lines:

My {teachings, instructions, sermons, speeches, lectures, etc.} are protected by copyright law. They are my own innovative phrases and I document/record them at the same time that I deliver them in order to secure protection. You the students are authorized to make one set of notes only for your own personal use ONLY. You are not authorized to record my lectures, to distribute your notes to anyone else, to make a copy or to use them for any commercial gains without taking any prior permission form me.

Oh! Really? There goes the spirit of education.

Our minds are not made up like Hard Drives that can be wiped off clean after the semester is over. The universities objective is to distribute knowledge, not to award a one time use for what you are taught in the classroom. The idea of an individual student is to gain knowledge which can be used in every probable way during his life span and leave behind those ideas to others.

Corporate Gifts

A mind-boggling thought about what recession can bring is a practice of tightening up the business belt. Good riddance to the well paid bum in the next cubicle!

Employees actually start working instead of updating themselves in Linked In or Facebook. The world becomes less extravagant and paves a path to increase prosperity down the road. But bad habits and gestures die hard like the one that I could never understand: The concept of sending gifts to customers, which I simply cannot believe still goes on.

I don’t imagine that the customer is actually pleased with these gifts. In fact it has a contradictory effect. The customer starts wondering why does business houses spend money on twaddle rather than concentrating on increasing the efficiency and lowering the prices. I don’t think the customers are fooled by these gifts. Some even may be furious by these wastes of money.

Lets say that a diary cost Rs.100/- and an organization has somewhere around 10000 clients. The organization then decides to send these diaries, an idea engendered by some B-School guy in upper management, to all these clients. Not taking into account the sheer operational and administration exercise involved and not taking the courier charges into account, the total venture would turn out to Rs 10 Lacs. Now with this 10 Lacs one can easily fire ones imagination what can possibly be done by an organization apart from putting it into R&D, Employee safety, Services, efficiency, hiring, improving packaging, upgrading S/W or web service, etc. But no – the company decides to instead squander the money on despicable kickbacks that has nothing to do with retaining clients.

Getting those diaries via the courier services serve the customer the crucial thought that possibly business is failing and that perhaps diaries may help in keeping the customers happy – not good products and decent services. Meanwhile we live in outdated times, employing an army of fools from B-Schools, who think that business life consist of dressing dandily and gabbing glibly. In the interim, the people who actually make the business run are poorly paid and under valued. Even if the Organization is using the most up-to-date technology which is extremely doubtful, the B School grad may not put the money spent on gifts into a price break for the customer. They never realize that what the customer is actually looking for is a price discount, a better service, and a good pricing policy throughout the year. These are what make people glad and communicates true loyalty, true commitment, true service and true attachment to the concept of excellence.

Business concept is not a Santa Claus Company. Business means – Get Rid Of Waste. I call it GROW. A gift to the client sends a clear message: “We love waste and we think you love it too”

While I appreciate that if an Organization is doing great and reaping in profits, there are times for loving, sharing and gifting customers. But people should do this with their own dough and not at the expense of the Organization. Why advertise incompetence, extravagance and wastefulness to your customers?

I never understood why that B-School Grad never got through this idea that business is absolutely and totally reliant on customer for its revenue, so the revenue he spends on gifts inevitably comes from the customers. Organizations are throwing away money on freebies rather than serving their customers .

And as these freebies keep pouring in from these business houses, think of it as a symbol that this recession has not nearly been deep enough – or has not really been stretched enough!

The Quota Raj

Very soon a day will come when you are in a restaurant and the order is taking a wee bit long, you will find yourself in the men’s room and see a disaster. The toilet will have a flushing issue. The waste would be spilled all over the floor. You would see the customers leaving ground zero in a rush. The restaurant owner would not even be aware of it. The customers would lose all inspiration to eat or to order food.

The natural intuition would be to hold the restaurant owner responsible. What is it with these people and why cannot they at least have a clean toilet? But if you react this way, it would be unfair. The hidden hand behind this unsanitary calamity would be the BMC. The true origin of the mess would not be when you arrived at the toilet, but an ‘act’ which would have passed a long time back. With the ongoing environmental hysteria, an act would be passed – mandatory; all toilet tanks sold in the city limits of Mumbai use not more than 5 litres of water per flush. This act will be a devastating setback in the progress of civilization. I have not done my research so I would not be able to say how much water does a conventional toilet hold. Perhaps 10 litres? This new law may be enforced with fines and imprisonment!

Very soon you will have a thriving black market for toilet tanks and a profitable smuggling operation would come into effect. In any case we would become like the good old Union of Soviet Socialist Republic with a dramatic reduction in our standard of living (not that it is high now). We are already accustomed to bare rooms, long queues, poor dental care, garbage, filth, stray dogs, dogs’ poop, slums, beggars, noise pollution, water shortages and dry taps, power failure, adulterated milk, blood, water, fruits and vegetables, corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, municipal staffs, police and court, rising prices making basic necessities transform into luxurious, stress, negligible to overcrowded public transport,

It has been observed & experienced: Let enough time pass and people forget things. We get used to things

One of our greatest cultural and civilization achievement was our ability to solve the problem of human waste. Once upon a time toilets were outside the house. Today everyone assumes them to be a part of life. Toilets are attached to your sleeping area. This has been a sign of prosperity, well being, creative power and economic progress.

Human individuals achieved something with the innovation of waste disposal. The Govt. entered, intervened and took it away from us. These BMC acts will therefore take us a step backward from mankind’s objective to dispose human waste in the best possible way

Maybe some people just get their dose of kicks out of multiplying misery and making it impossible for the common people to enjoy a clean and prosperous life. These people think that there is virtue in suffering and would like to see everyone going through their quota.

The Parable Of Happiness

۞ Doesn’t matter what you think of the present world. Whatever you think or however you act, you cannot get rid of the present. Your existence is your present. When and if the present world suffers, you must suffer with it. And when the present world goes through the process of enjoyment, you will need to enjoy with it. We affect the world and the world affects us. We cannot escape and cannot be indifferent to our existence or to the world.


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۞ Happiness is a myth. It can best be described as a parable. Ask yourself if you are happy and you will immediately discover that you are reflecting with a couple of points. You will either stop asking that question or you will realize that happiness eludes you. Perhaps if you stop looking for happiness and concentrate on some other things you might discover happiness. I said, ‘perhaps.’


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Every new idea or theory goes through three stages. First, people say it conflicts with the religious beliefs. Next they say it has been discovered before. Lastly they say they always believed it.


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They say that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. I think for thousands of years it has been a known fact that the grass was actually greener on the other side of the fence. And what has fence got to do with the grass being greener. It may be that the people may have looked after the grass better and may have provided ample water. So like the Greek philosophers who carried their knowledge along with them, why shouldn’t you carry your own water and look after the grass wherever you may be?



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