Thursday, 4 September 2014

An Incredible Tale of Names, Namesakes and Opportunists...

Last week my relative returned from the US to attend his elder brother's marriage. And the day before the marriage, there is a tradition existing in our part of the world, or rather our community. All the close relatives of the bride would gather together and each one had to narrate a funny incident which happened in their lives in the past year. And, if they fail to make everyone laugh, he/she would have to do a 'dare' others demanded.

It was a fun occasion and a lot of funny incidents were discussed and a few funny dares were also done. But, being a recent passout, the incident that my cousin from US narrated appeared incredibly funny, ridiculous and amusing.

I would rather narrate the incident in his own words, with a few explanatory sentences added so you get to know him better.

"After four long years studying electrical engineering, 3 years in an IT Company and another two years of MBA, I decided I had seen enough of India. I went to the US of A (my parents live there) searching for jobs.

I applied for several openings and tasted success only in my 13th attempt. The job application process and the nature of interview are so different from that over here in India. And I still remember one such interview, my 9th attempt. The interviewer was a charming young lady with a pleasing personality and a warm smile.

After the preliminary pleasantries we started talking about my academics. She asked me from which university I graduated (apparently, the westerners don't refer to college name. They only inquire about the university we belong to). So, I said, 'Mam, I graduated from the Mahatma Gandhi University, which is one of the pioneers in engineering education in our country'.

What happened next came as a surprise to me. She said, "Oh.. Mahatma Gandhi University!! Wow, that's nice.. I am a huge admirer of Gandhi, though I didn't know a university existed in his name. Must have been a great place to study, eh". She also showed me Gandhiji's talisman as well as Gandhiji's portrait which she had hung on the walls of her office.

Surprised that I was, I didn't show any of it outside (atleast I think so). To think that the name of my university would have such a profound impact on the interviewer was unimaginable.

I had heard tales of how names of people make interviewers ask questions in a particular direction. I had a friend named Minesh Happy. Whenever he went for an interview, during introduction he would say, 'My name is Minesh Happy. People call me Happy.'  Inevitably, interviewers would then ask him about his intriguing, strange, funny and amusing name. And the interview would go along nicely in that direction. He always made the interviewers ask the questions he wanted them to ask and he was often successful in doing so because of his 'good name'.

However, I was not blessed with any such fancy names to play with and here was an opportunity that I could never possibly imagine. I decided to impress her further. Somehow, an urge for creativity grew inside me. An idea came to my mind suddenly (dimag ki bathi jala di)..

I told her, "As a matter of fact, this university was founded by Gandhiji himself in 1937 and it is one of the biggest in India. Some even call it modern Takshashila......." and so I went.

For the first time in my life I felt good for studying in such a 'great' university which provided me the opportunity to exploit its great name. The creative genius in me dished out even more fantabulous tales about it. I congratulated myself for not overdoing it.

The interviewer was clearly impressed with my academic background and the whole interview was going on very nicely. I thought I had nailed a job at last and I felt great about myself.

But, as it happens, what happened next was something I didn't foresee. The ardent fan that she was, she couldn't resist learning more about this great university. She opened her laptop and Googled to know more about my great university..... "

The rest, I leave to your imagination. :D

100 not out and counting...

I am speaking about our new BJP govt, and in particular the captain of the team Narendra Modi here.

I was among the many who were quite anxious as to how the new govt would treat different religions and to what extent saffronisation would be done. So far, it has been so good.

The first 100 days were amazing with a lot of new energy and direction coming in. At least, that is what I felt as an outsider interested in these things..

Positives:

A lot of factors have worked in favour of BJP at the moment. The US economy is reviving. So it has triggered an early recovery and growth in our economy as well. The govt has not faced any major crisis in the past 100 days- No scams, No natural disasters and No major allegations against the govt. They have been helped further by the fact that the Congress party is now weaker and no one has been able to rise to the position of the opposition party. Also, they control most of the seats in the Lok Sabha which means that need not depend on coalition politics to get bills passed.

Less Talk and More Work- That is what Modi has been doing in the past 3 months. He vowed not to interact with the Media until atleast 3 months in the office was over. According to newspaper reports, the secretariat is working more punctually and more systematically now. Ministers are working late and coming quite early. Modi appears to be a no nonsense man and I have begun to respect him enormously.

Policy wise, I think this govt is going to achieve a lot more than the previous UPA govts. This govt has set apart a significant amount for the development of the MSME sector and in particular the export industry. Modi said in his highly acclaimed independence speech that the youngsters must look at each items that are being imported into the country and see how they can be manufactured here. There is a lot of encouragement given to aspiring entrepreneurs and our economy has exceeded expectations in the last quarter as far as GDP is concerned, reaching a 10 quarter high of 5.7% while the prediction was 5.5%.

The new govt is also likely to bring in the Goods and Services Tax policy which would imply that exporters/manufacturers would need to pay only one single tax instead of around 12 different indirect taxes in different categories. The UPA govt had tried to implement that Tax system but BJP had opposed it then. But now, the BJP are the ones trying to implement it. One might wonder why this change of heart now. Politics is something which only the politicians can understand. Whatever it be, if the GST is implemented it would augur well for our country.

So far apart from a few isolated instances where Party members tried to impose/proclaim Hindutva, there has been nothing to worry. Modi send a strong message against communal politics in his independence day speech, which was a very good thing.


Negatives:

If there is anything to criticise, I think it would be the resignation of non-BJP (affiliated) governors in different states of the country. That could have been avoided or better managed.

Also, there is no Leader of Opposition or an Opposition Party at the moment. This could mean that democratic discussions may not be as effective as it should be. Whether the Congress Party deserved to hold the Leader of Opposition post is another question. However, it is my opinion that Congress Party could have been given that post, even though it is impossible considering the political mileage the BJP can get if the Congress doesn't hold that post.

Another issue would be the appointment of Amit Shah as the BJP President. I strongly feel that it sends the wrong signal. Amit Shah was arrested a few years ago and even recently action was taken against him for hate speech. Appointing such a person is not the right thing to do, isn't it? That is what I feel about it.

Lastly, there is the Modi-fication of BJP with senior veterans being left out of the mix. Is BJP becoming a one man army? If so, is that a good thing? Democracy should mean distribution of power. If power gets concentrated in one man's hands, it can turn bad. Will Modi become a Dictator in a Democracy? Both his Party and Government has been completely Modi-fied. It is the attribute of the strong leader that Modi is. However, the question is will other opinions be shut out?

A thin line separates Strong leadership and Dictatorship.