Michami Dukdam.. Do we really mean it?

Michami Dukdam - two words which mean 'I ask for forgiveness for any words I might have said or any action, in past (this life or previous lives), knowingly or unknowingly, and which might have hurt other lives and also that I forgive other life forms for any words or actions which might have hurt me.'
(Forgiving someone is always more difficult than simply asking for forgiveness.)

Nowadays, however, Michami Dukdam has simply become a formality, that you say within a weeks time after Sanvatsari (last day of spiritual eight day Jain Festival, Paryushan)  gets over. Its like replacing a Hello, or a Jay Jinendra or a Namaste with.. Michami Dukdam. Most people do not really mean it. That includes me.
I am pretty sure that hardly any person would say Michami Dukdam to people with whom they are not in talking terms because of some untoward incident in past. Well, isn't he/she the person to whom you should say it first?! and actually mean it! i.e. first forgive him in your heart, before asking for any forgiveness.

If you have a feeling that you have hurt someone in past, then please mention that incident, say it was your mistake and then ask for forgiveness. That is what makes the whole process effective and meaningful. That, I feel, is the true meaning of Michami Dukdam. Please for God's sake, it is not something like Good Evening or Good Night.

And finally, please do not wait for Sanvatsari to say Michami Dukdam to anyone you feel you must say it. You never know what might happen tomorrow. Don't carry that heavy weight of Guilt on your head for too long.

Gujarat - really against Minorities?!

This is not my own post. Surprisingly this report came up in HT, known to be purely anti-Narendra Modi. However, they did try to negate the view at the end of report by quoting some Modi-jealous politicians and BJP opponents.


Two BJP-governed states—Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh —have raised eyebrows by robustly implementing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s key measures for minorities, which are overseen by the Minority Affairs Ministry.
In a Cabinet appraisal chaired by Singh on Thursday, Gujarat, along with nine other states,was found to have put in place standard operating procedures to prevent and actduring communal riots. BJP-ruled Karnataka, prone to communal tension, has also implemented the procedures,as has Goa. Most Congress-ruled states, including Maharashtra, have not.
Madhya Pradesh earned a good rating for implementing a Central initiative to modernise madrassas.
“The PM had called for quantifiable evidence on minority welfare.He expressed happiness over the minority affairs ministry’s steps to implement his programme,” said an official, requesting anonymity.
Not everyone thinks the ‘improvement’ is incredible.“In Gujarat, a distinction has to be made between paperwork and ground work. Minorities there remain vulnerable,” said human rights activist Shabnam Hashmi, who works extensively in the state.

Well, it seems our PM's party only knows how to talk about giving minorities the priority, when it comes to speeches at Red Fort on Independence Day, and polarise the community.
Albeit, I am still against giving opportunities to some group of people, purely on the basis of caste. We, Gujaratis, never asked for Opportunities. We always created Those.

Picked the italicized text above from here (the original report in HT)

From Crest to Trough

Rahul Gandhi. I had really started gaining respect for him, trying to forget all the deeds by his father like an outrageous Sikh riots*, Bofors Case, etc. Rahul Gandhi hardly ever spoke negatively about any of his counterparts and almost never threw mud at other. He pulled off a brave thing by travelling in Mumbai local against the will of Raj  'bol-bachhan' Thackeray. This was probably the crest of the admiration that I had for him.
But why the hell is he quiet over various events happened in last 3 months or so?! In fact, not only silent, he has disappeared totally from public.
Kashmir is boiling, CWG corruption nothing short of utter shamelessness#, Railway accidents touching an all time high, Inflation accompanied by lakhs of tonnes of food grains being wasted in FCI compounds, ... and so on. Now, where is our 'Oh so brave' Rahul Gandhi. Even our 'Oh so Good and clean' PM Manmohan Singh is quiet on these issues. What are they busy with? Is Rahul Gandhi busy with Veronique?! Is Manmohan Singh busy diverting party funds from Swiss banks?!
The silence and invisibility over all the events by Rahul Gandhi has only managed to pull down my respect for him from a Crest to a Trough.

*Just read a document which quoted Rajiv Gandhi on arrival at Palam airport in 1984 after Indira Gandhi's murder, "My mother has been shot dead, What are you doing here? Go, and take revenge. .... "
# A 4,000 rupees toilet tissue paper roll for CWG Village? .. I would rather settle with Constipation!!

Tips for people who are thinking of suicide!

(Vivek Babajee's suicide and 3 idiots movie suicide made me think quite a few points about Suicide)

First of all, suicide is a crime. So its better you plan really well in advance to make sure that you don't be unsuccessful, unless you are prepared to be jailed.

Now, when you write a suicide letter, and want to blame someone for your situation, don't just 'Name' the person! I know you must be really depressed and want to take revenge on each and every person who has been even slightly bad with you. Even on your servant maid who did not come to work the previous day. Your position is anyway hopeless. As a matter of fact, you are a big loser. There cannot be a bigger one!
Now, diverting from your loser point. When you want to name someone for your miserable situation, give examples and anecdotes of why was that person cruel to you, with approximate time line and place. So that he/she can be rightfully pinned by law. If you do not have any significant reason or examples against that person, then do not just write a Name, you are committing a double sin - suicide and ruining someone's life. And in fact, if you do not have a significant reason, you might want to re-think as to why you want to kill yourself.

And on second thought, if the person has really made your life so horrible that it made you think of dropping to a loser level, I mean, made you think of committing suicide, Why not kill that person?! .. See, he might have a very good chance of escaping Indian law system. And in any case, he is not gonna be hanged because you committed a suicide. By killing that person, you will obviously have a risk of getting caught, but again, even if u get caught, Indian law system applies to you too. You have a bright chance of going free! Killing yourself is obviously not the option, you loser!

And finally, spiritually speaking - If you are committing suicide because you are in a deep 'trouble' (psst.. I wanted to write s*** here but I wanted 'family ratings' for my blog :P) because of your own actions, Suicide is just procrastinating your problems. If you think you are running away from your ruins, then you are not. You are gonna be Reborn and Suffer for all the deeds you did in this life and also for killing a human - Yourself!

Bandh losses estimates : nothing but Amusing!

I really find it amusing reading the news about estimates of losses to economy of more than Rs. 13,000 crores. Well, I think there are some real morons out there in media who make such calculations and poor ignorant readers and viewers also believe in them. (Click here for related news)
Lets do a simple calculation. India's annual GDP is around 50 trillion rupees. So, when we divide that by 365 days, i.e to calculate the GDP per day, it comes out to a touch more than 13 thousand crores rupees.
Do you really think that one day (rather, 12 hours) of Bandh will actually mean that GDP of that much amount will be lost, totally!
The figure of 13000 Crores sounds really stupid to me.

If this theory has to be true, then

• Everyone who was gonna buy food items on the day of Bandh will not buy those items and observe fast for one day. (or are they gonna buy more food items on previous day / later days?)
• People who were planning to buy clothes and accessories will drop their plans of buying them altogether just because Monday was declared Bandh and they had planned to buy the items on Monday and only on that Monday!
• Some IT companies claiming that they had a loss of 50 crores rupees in a day. Well, it means that they are not gonna compensate for all the man-hours lost by making their employees work on a weekend?!
• and so on...

I think its really absurd to estimate the losses for one day of Bandh that was observed. People are just gonna delay their purchases or compensate for their production by working more hours later on. However, I dont mean to say that Bandh had no effect on commerce and economy. There is a loss to economy but I think its negligible compared to the amounts being mentioned in news channel and newspaper. The figures and estimates about loss to the economy are simply absurd according to me.

(Well, the people who really suffer because of Bandh are the ones who work on daily wages. Their one day of wage was wasted. Many others did make loss, but nothing hurts as much as it does to daily wage laborers)

Any comments or argument?! you are most welcome! :)

A Day Not to Remember...

I am generally one of the biggest advocates of Mumbai as the best place in India to live in.. rather, one of the best places in World to live in... but today, probably for the first time in almost 25 years of my lifetime, I was disappointed with way she behaved.. Today was the third phase of the 13th lok sabha general elections and the voter turnout in almost all the constituencies in Mumbai was abysmal... and being a Gujarati, I am associated with Gujarat too... so it was even more disheartening for me as Gujarat too showed lacklustre voter turnout with only 50% of voters reaching out to election booths...

This election was the most impressive when it comes to use of media and marketing to urge people to participate in this biggest democracy of world... I was of the feeling that Mumbai being high tech with majority of people having access to Television, Internet, Newspapers, etc., would break all the records.. News in morning said 10% voting till 10 AM.. I tried to be positive, and I felt like shouting out loud 'Mumbai, 7 more hours to go. Get out. Get your nails painted blue' .. I waited and waited, but it was in vain... Mumbai didn't respond to my cry..
I did try to make a difference by volunteering for Jaago Re movement (by ever responsible Tata group), and persuading people to VOTE.. This was the first time in last 6 months that I woke up at 7 in the morning.. so that I could vote and then get along with related work! ... I am also happy that my society and areas surrounding had a hefty turnout.. I feel proud to be a member of the society* in which I live :) .. but Mumbai as a whole did let me down big time... especially the youngsters... It really keeps me thinking what should we do to make youngsters vote as youngsters were the ones who did not turn up... I got reason that it was a long weekend (today, 30th... 1st may being a labour day... 2nd and 3rd being weekend), so people went out on a 4 day trip!... Guys, booth starts at 7 AM... you could have easily voted and then gone for the 'still left 4 days' for a trip... then second reason was hot weather.. hmm.. youngsters sweating out in mumbai sun for hardly 30 minutes will dehydrate them, make them fall sick?!!... losers!...

Mumbai was vociferous, out on streets when terrorists attack happened... now when time to do something that really matters... to vote in someone who obviates the need of those candle light morchas.. nothing happened! ... but i think mumbai has no right to do that now... ignorance and short term memory loss at its best..

Well, the biggest rival of Mumbai as a city in India is Delhi, when it comes to argument of best cities... and I want Mumbai to win in all aspects.. but in this case, I really want Delhi to win... Delhi has got its voting day on 7th May,... so Delhi, go out and vote.. you got golden opportunity to beat Mumbai here... you won't get it often! ;) ... and for a change make me proud by doing that...

Politics is not a swear word.. VOTE!

India is the biggest democracy in world by far and we surely don't take a back seat in talking about that, but when it comes to being a part of that record, you say 'mujhse akele se kya fark padta hai'.. we can'tt get any more cynical than that.. well, I am not asking you to go out and fight for elections... that is not as easy... but at least 'VOTE', my friends.... people refrain from voting by saying 'NO CANDIDATE in my constituency was good enough to get my vote.. '.. we say that very boastfully, trying to portray ourselves as smart, but in my view, we are simply irresponsible... as most of us never tried to know the candidates just because we wanted to sleep on a holiday (i.e a voting day) .. if we ever took pains to know, we can at least go and vote for the better amongst the candidates, rather than none.. at least we will make it a point that whoever comes into lok sabha/vidhan sabha will do less harm than others will, if not good...

Chandrababu Naidu said this when he was at his peak in politics during NDA rule, "Politics need not be a swear word. Politicians can be good for people. Politicians can be business managers. Running the state like it is a company. Where change is a number that has to be achieved. A politician can know how to use a computer and turn a backwater into a technology and an industry hub. He can be a fanatic, but about the common man's prosperity; Stay in power by the surrender of power; By representing people, not ruling. Politics and governance can be transparent. People will be able to hold a politician responsible for his actions. Starting now, politicians should stop asking for people's support. They should support people. politics should not come in people's way. It should be, the way."

This is possible only if we participate in democracy. We can raise voice to our representative only if we have participated in electing 

him.

I know that most of us and especially the fairer sex have 'Ignore' state of mind whenever they hear anything distantly in relation to politics. We love to hate politics and blame everything on politicians. Its fashionable to curse the politicians. But we hardly realise that we are actually cursing ourselves as we are the ones who elect the politics. And at the same time, if we are not participating in the democracy by not voting, we are also proving that we are stupid.

I remember this saying by George Bernard Shaw .. "Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve" ... Its only us who is responsible for whatever things that politicians do, because they are OUR representatives.

Note : 

1. Please vist http://www.jaagore.com and register.. They take up various initiatives (elecotral registration, voicing grievances, etc)

2. One more interesting website, http://www.politicalcompass.org/test ... test what kind of political ideology you possess... so that you know which political party's ideology matches yours