India 60

First, Wishes on our country's 60 years of independence.

I just thought this was the right moment to take a look back and analyze certain things. 60 Years of Independence is fine, but don’t you all feel there are matters which are not attended to from the beginning? Are we now realizing what our fore fathers had dreamt of?
We talk about the freedom struggle, the independence, August 15th for a few days in the second week of August. That’s when we dust out all the famous patriotic movies and watch them being telecasted on the televisions. This second week is when schools force young minds to dress up like Subhas Chandra Bose, Gandhi and the likes and have a 4 hour program. The next bout of patriotism will hit most of our countrymen only during the third week of January. May be I am over critical, but as per my definition of what is part of patriotism I believe I am right in saying this.

With Freedom comes Power, and with power, Responsibility. We struggled for that freedom for 3 centuries and when we got the freedom and power we lost the sense of responsibility in us. Unfortunately this has been in practice for the past 60 years, and now is embedded in most our minds. We blame the government, we want everything to be done by the government, and as citizens we do nothing in return. We are responsible for the bad government at the top, we are responsible for the bad roads or bad infrastructure as most of us do not even bother to pay our taxes right. And when it comes to following the rules and regulations, we stand at the last with the majority of our population always opting for a shorter route or taking pride in going against the rules of law.

This might sound not right, showcasing the wrong things on such an occasion. Trust me, I have just mentioned only few of our shortcomings, there are lots more. This day, instead of forwarding the usual messages of 'Happy Independence Day', let’s try to make ourselves better in a small way. We talk about resolutions on New Year’s Eve. Let’s have one such today.
Let’s make up a resolution that we will try to be an Honest, Law abiding, model citizen of India. A nation is because of its people. If we are right, the nation is Right.

Be Right. Love India.

Jai Hind.

It is not what you gather but what you scatter..

I read this one-liner somewhere and liked it a lot.

"It is not what you gather but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived."

I believe it talks about KNOWLEDGE. A person learns a lot in his/her lifetime, but sometimes forgets that with learning comes the responsibility of sharing the same with people with a thirst to learn. A man who cannot share his knowledge and expects to be respected on the grounds of his knowledge deserves no respect.

I know a man, whom I considered to be a sort of a mini encyclopedia, who not only shared what he knew all his lifetime but also had a thirst to learn something from everyone till the last day of his life. It was always easy for him to explain the most complex of theories or formulas or historical facts in a simple manner, and put it across in a language depending on the age of the listener. I have seen children, middle aged people and oldies all getting to know a lot from him. He never made people around him feel that he knew a lot. Actually, he always used to say everyone knew so many things and it was good to share it. This might be the reason that when it comes to matters of computer technology of electronic gadgetry, he used to seek answers/opinions from me. And when he did not know it, he would never hesitate to ask me, his grandson, about the same and also make me do a KNOW-HOW-TO-OPERATE checklist for himself. Such greatness was what I always adore in my Grandfather.

He was a genius with History, Crosswords, Fables, Idioms, Sports, geography and world matters. I still remember a Crossword program in Doordarshan, where contestants used to compete on a crossword puzzle. When all the viewers would be waiting to see which of the two contestants would answer first, I always used to wait to see when my grandfather would miss to answer before the two contestants. And that never happened.

There is a reason for me blogging this now. My grandfather is not alive now. It’s been more than a year since he left us. And in the meantime I have regretted of all the knowledge that I have never bothered to learn from him. He was always telling me to start doing crosswords which would improve my English, but have never done it. He was also bent upon sharing his knowledge with everyone. I feel that is a great philosophy and being a grandson, I am trying to Learn and share the learning with everyone.

There are lots of memories of my grandfather, but I felt this virtue of his is a great one, and should be respected and followed. Learn from everyone, irrespective of them being elder or younger to you. Share what you know to the needy, in way they understand.

Because, knowledge is wisdom......

My Music Chart toppers..

This is the list of My Fav Music as of today. Note that they are not ranked, just listed.
* SONG -> (MOVIE, LANGUAGE, SINGER)
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* Athiradee -> (Sivaji - The Boss, Tamil, A R Rahman)
* Unaale Unaale -> (Unaale Unaale, Tamil, Karthik)
* Nee Amritadhaare -> (Amritadhaare, Kannada, Harish Raghavendra)
* Mungaaru Maleye -> (Mungaaru Male, Kannada, Sonu Nigam)
* Laree Choote -> (Ek Chaalis ki last local, Hindi, Xulfi)
* Mera Jeevan Kora Kaagaz -> (Aandhi, Hindi, Kishore Kumar)
* Hoton se choolo tum -> (Prem Geet, Hindi, Jagjit Singh)

Celebrities behind bars

World over, it seems to be the season for the celebrities to cool their heels behind bars. The latest being our own Sanju Baba. With the end of the 14 year long case of the BOMBAY BLAST, Sanjay Dutt was sentenced to 6 years of Rigorous imprisonment.

I thought it was unbecoming of the Film fraternity to openly tag it as a sad moment. Sanjay was an actor, accepted. An actor, who has dished out good films and good performances. But this cannot ever become a reason for pardoning of a crime committed by him. Law should stand above the status or importance of an individual. There are accusations of other celebrities/politicians being let off free in other high profile cases and Sanjay alone being punished for his crime. Well, if this is the first time that a celebrity has been punished, so be it. Let this be the beginning and be a reference to other high profile cases in the future.

Personally, I feel the punishment could have been more severe. Being an actor, in a capacity to cast a spell of his own on-screen personality on fragile young minds of the country, he might for all be giving a wrong sense of social message being involved in such a ghastly crime and let off free on the grounds of it being a 'Small mistake committed 14 years ago'

There has to be a fear and respect for the Law, and public awareness that, irrespective of the stature of the person in the society, a criminal act would be punished.