Baddi Diary I

It has been around one and half year from last post. Every time I write a blog I think of continuing. Writing with the same feeling this time also. Let us see. J

Recently my company sent me to Baddi. Baddi is an industrial area in Himachal Pradesh and also a tax free zone. To take advantage of tax exemption, my company has set up a plant in this area (like many others). You will find many pharmaceutical as well as FMCG companies operating in Baddi. It is one half hours away from Chandigarh.

When I left Mumbai for Baddi, I had come with plans of visiting friends in Chandigarh, going to nearby tourist places, etc. Today is 22^nd day of my stay here and I have not been able even to go the swimming pool of the apartment in which I am currently put up. A hell lot of work pressure! Entire day goes in follow-up and manpower management.

Such is the manpower shortage in Baddi, a newcomer like me gets frustrated quickly. You come to factory in morning only to see that Casuals have not turned up and production is going to suffer big time. Then your boss calls you up and fires you left right centre and the conversation ends with you committing a production number which you know you will not be able to deliver. This then becomes a routine. And this was indeed the routine for first 10 days. After that me and my boss, both have become used to it.

One fine evening, rather night; I was thinking about why is there such an acute shortage of skilled labour. The reasons were all there, waiting to be found out.

1. Locals have got astronomical sums of money for the land they had. Once upon a time, they were struggling to fill their empty stomachs. Now they roam around in Scorpios. Good for them actually. As a result, local labour is totally absent. This is a common phenomenon everywhere there is a sudden rush of development. Nothing new.

2. Like everywhere else, companies here have 2 sets of workers: 1 set which is on the rolls of company and another set which is casual labour. Casual labour working Baddi are mostly from outside. Yes you guessed it right, from Bihar, UP & Rajsthan. Thank god there is no Raj Thackeray here as of now.

a. Now, problem with these people is they are available in groups of 10,20,30 etc. They have this habit of going back to their homeland in groups. When they do go, it becomes very difficult to find another group. May-June being the vacation months, labour shortage becomes acute.

b. Another issue is, as they are in groups they are very sensitive about their groups. They have sort of formed unions. So if one worker gets some flak from superiors, they all will revolt and will stop work. A factory manager needs to be very careful handling such cases.

c. Some of the organizations have gone to the extent of increasing the wages by 100% or even more. This has brought the wages at par with some of the permanent employees. But it is causing many problems to small sector enterprises as they cant afford such wages.

This analysis sparked a series of thoughts in my mind. Every day we read a lot about rich becoming richer and poor becoming poorer. Left parties keep on fighting for the cause of poor. (or claim to do so). They make unions, make protests, call strikes. They accuse and rightly so that salaries of some few individuals are more than the combined salaries of working class. Obviously we can’t make a manager’s salary equal to worker’s. But we certainly can bring down the gap to a respectable level. The Baddi situation provides at least the direction, if not the solution.

Why can’t be there 100 Baddis in India where there will be fast development which will generate huge skilled manpower requirement. The demand supply law will then make sure that the workers get respectable wages and overall living standards will be raised? Why can’t each state government try such model atleast at one location in respective state, then check the results and then replicated the model to other under developed places?

There may be issues in doing things stated above. Need to research on those. Will come back after that.

Life At the Crossroads

It has been four months since last post. (BTW Who cares? ) This one is going to be the ramblings of a frustrated mind. Beware! 

There comes a phase in your life when you become unnecessarily philosophical, you unnecesarily worry about things which are not under your control and you get trapped into unnecessary confusions. I am going through the same right now.  Desperately hoping this brings out something good for me.  

Much of what has happened in my life till now has just happened without my knowledge. But now I want to tek control. For last month or so, I wake up with this very concern in mind and sleep without doing anything to address the same. 

Fundamentally there is something wrong somewhere and I got to find it out. Yesterday one usless professor gave us one excercise of writing down how does one spend his day. It was an eye opener for many of us. I spend only 10% of my time in doing things which might add value to my self. Rest 90% time is spent doing NVAs (Non Value-adding Activities). It is not that I was unaware of this but writing down the same made it so obvious. This is an excercise worth doing. It will certainly help if done seriously.

Time to stop here itself. 

P.S. As I type one more blast rocked the nation, save yourself if you can. :-(

The Sunday Read

Summer is at its peak. Sun is at its torturing worst. Day passes in an AC office cabin. Nights in deep sleep but then come the horrible mornings with no electricity. It is really frustrating. Week ends are even more frustrating with nothing to do. IPL has come to my rescue to save me from the boredom.

STOI is a great companion on Sundays. This Sunday I wake up to the reports of Raj Thackeray's Shivaji Park rally which, as usual, drew the media attention that it needed. Now, there is something about this man, Raj, which makes me think. He asks some uncomfortable questions, makes some boisterous statements, ridicules his opponents in an uncivilised manner and tries to imitate the Big Thackeray. In the end he makes me think.

Warning: You may find this piece of writing as a jingoists rambling but I fiercely deny to be one.

As the TOI report said Raj trained his guns again on Bhaiyyas, dared the state government to arrest him, poked fun at his usual targets Amar Singh, Lalu and Abu Azmi. Then moved on to show how Big B prefers UP over Maharashtra.

Now if you can sense something from his speeches, he is carefully giving a way out to a long standing fears of Maharashtrians of Mumbai. ( The manner in which he is doing it, is questionable, though) The fear of losing control over city's affairs, the fear of Marathi culture being rooted out, the fear of being ruled by "others". These fears have been there for long. Shivsena attempted to allay these fears in earlier times. But it changed course as the time progressed. Now the time has come when the situation in Mumbai is such that if you are a Marathi, you will give a second thought on what you see around yourself. The big rallies held by North Indians, the increasing number of theatres showing Bhojpuri movies and the same time Marathi movies not getting place for screening, the local media attention given to the likes of Amar Singh, Abu Azmi, the huge celebrations of UP Divas and Chath Pooja, etc.

Now it doesn't require a Raj Thackeray to sense what is coming... One example will clear things. BMC has 27 North Indian Corporators out of total strengh of 227. Now when these 27 demand the proceedings of BMC should be strictly in Hindi then there is something wrong this. Such demand defeat the essence of States being made on linguistic basis.Now a common-man Bhaiyya has nothing to do with this. He is happy to work hard and live in peace. But the vote bank politics being played by their leaders gives birth to the Raj Thackerays. In this process ultimately who suffers is the poor taxi driver or the hapless vegetable vendor. Beating up Taxi men is not the solution. I will keep this thing aside in this post.

I, personally, will be more than happy to be ruled by Shivsena or Raj Thackeray rather than some UP wallahs. Not because they are from UP but because they have proven track record of destroying what was good and taking the system to new lows.

Let us come to what has been on my mind most, the Hindi news channels. They are inherently biased when they report anything about Raj. These channels bring in North Indian Netas who start giving lectures about Human Rights, Constitutional rights and they advise Maharshtrian public not to elect people like Raj. I question their credibility. These men have turned UP, Bihar into living hells and they are trying to teach others whom to vote and whom not to. They are the root cause of the problem Had the situation in UP, Bihar not been so bad, the problem of outsiders in Mumbai won't exist.

There were few questions like why the % of Biharis in Railways has been on the rise for last 7-8 years, why Rail Budget gives Mumbai/Maharashtra a pittance as compared to Bihar, why suddenly in Mumbai Chath Pooja is being celebrated on such a large extent, why similar statements by South Indian leaders don't come under the scanner,etc. These are uncomfortable questions. Nobody answers these questions and this makes a common Marathi like me to think a little deeper about the issue. These questions are the ones about which a common Marathi Manus is concerned. It is just that Raj Thackeray has grabbed the opportunity to voice these concerns. His methods should be rejected in their entirety but until one finds saitsfactory answers to above questions I fear that Raj will be successful in his tactics, needless to say, which is not good for the idea of Republic of India.

Meanwhile The Great Khali is back (with his sexy wife). You can catch him 24 * 7 on AAJ TAK, Star News, India TV,etc. :-)) IPL is inching towards becoming a bore phenomenon with the exit of Aussies. Let's see. Hope you will have a cool week ahead. N yes Comments will be appreciated!!!

A Half an Hour and Some Questions

The day gone by was 14th April. There must have been scores of bloggers, essentially from higher stratas of our society, thinking, writing, talking about one Man who, they think, made their life miserable. Yes, you guessed it right. I am talking about Ambedkar Jayanti and the rituals asscociated with it. I must warn you that this is not commentory on his towering personality. I am too small a person to do that. This is just what I saw during an half hour journey from office to Hostel and which made my now-a-days-less-utilized brain to ponder upon some quetions.

So here it goes... I was driving my way back to Hostel from office, Traffic wale mama se bachte, struggling to find my way out through Mumbai's snarling traffic. Generally I don't think while I drive. This helps me not to miss any interesting two-legged creature which comes across. But it was a special day today. One thing that I noticed on the usually overcrowded Andheri-Seepz Road was the big Hoardings displaying typical folded-hands cut-outs of Soniaji (as every "loyal" Congressman would love to address her) and our-own Vilasrao. I think there was some function which was to be attended by these two. These are very familiar scenes to any Indian. But this time the difference was there was a middle sized portrait of Ambedkar also. Ah.. I got it..It is 14th April and Sonia and Vilasrao were "saluting" this great soul. Nothing wrong in that. As my bike made slow progress, I saw there were atleast hundread of such kind posters on a stretch of hardly 1-1.5 Kms. I did a quick calculation: Rs 500 per poster multiplied by 100 posters makes Rs 50000. There are hundreads of such streets in Mumbai. If we do the calcualtion for Mumbai alone, forget entire India, I think this amount will suffice for many a Dalit childern to complete their often-talked-about primary education. They are the same children before whose parents these Netas profess their committment to Ambedkarian Values. Why don't we understand this or Have we surrendered to the system which was essentially created by us only? God only knows the answer.

Just on the next turn, on Jogeshwari Vikroli link road, every big politician was lined up to pay their tributes to Babsaheb. From Mayawati to Ramdas Athawale, from Sharad Pawar to Uddhav Thackeray, From Raj Thackeray to Abu Azmi !!! What a joke!!! All bloody vote bank politics, commented my friend who was with me and who generally is not interested in politics. This is the state of our so called mature and world's largest democracy. Which once looked like a beautiful dream coming true, why it has turned into a hard-to-digest reality?

You might think I am being cynical. If you do then you are not wrong. Things are becoming worse. Just to give an example, the same Judiciary which gave the landmark verdict on Quota is reluctant to make it mandatory for the judges to disclose their assets and we say they are the last hope. Who is gonna bring our country out of this shit?? This thought worries me but at the same time it is my favourite pastime while I travel alone.

Having successfully dodged 2-3 pulice-mamas , we reached to our regularly-visited Vada-Pav ki Dukaan. The noise of loudspeakers was too much. It was playing the Ambedkari songs that we Maharashtrians are accustomed to. On every 14th April, the Maharashtrian Buddhist and Ambedkarian make it a point to play these songs in a volume that could easily irritate anybody. I do understand the rational behind this. But then every community in India follows the same path. Muslims want everybody to listen to their Azaans, Hindus want everybody to sing their Ganesh Aartis and den Dalits. Why do we try to assert our identity and that too in this ridiculous way? It only gives some vote-snatching techniques to vote-hungry politicos. Thats why we have every politician wishing us Happy Diwali, Eid Mubarak and Merry Christmas which turn our already ugly roads uglier.

And here I entered the calm, serene premises of NITIE which immediately made me forget, for a moment, what were going on outside and that's the beauty of this campus. But neverthless, that half-an-hour stretch was really a thought provoking one. It raised a hell lot of questions in my mind. Answers to these are the things which I will look for in the future.

Me Too...

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2714589.cms

What's that? A link to the list of the Bharat Ratna Awardees over the years. This is the modern way of beginning an article. Whatever (crap) you write, you must mention internet somewhere in it otherwise you will be called e-illiterate. Now it is really unfortunate and saddening not to find Shri Pravin Patil (That’s me…) on that list and that's what I am gonna discuss.

On the eve of Republic day, I got a call from a dear friend (unfortunately, again, male). After initial Hi-Hello, we discussed about, of course, girls and came to the usual conclusion “Apna Kuch Nahi Ho Sakta”. Suddenly he changed the track and the conversation went like this…

My Friend: Yaar, Tuze Bharat Ratna Milna Chahiye….Matlab Tuze Bhi Bharat Ratna Milna Chahiye…

Me: What crap? What are you talking about? Are you alright?

M.F.: Arey, I was just joking. Now a day, everybody is demanding Bharat Ratna. So I thought you can also be right there with all of them.

Me: Oh, that thing. Hmm I have read it in newspapers. Nothing surprising, what else can you expect from our Netas? Ye India hai, yahan pe aisahi chalta hai…

The chat went on. But when the call ended, it created enough curiosity in my mind which made me to google Bharat Ratna. I came across a lot of info about the awards. Like this…

“The award of Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian honour, is given for exceptional service towards advancement of Art, Literature and Science, and in recognition of Public Service of the highest order.”

This is posted on Ministry of Home Affairs‘ website. Don’t be surprised, these days Ministries too have their websites. Coming back to the topic, I read the statement again and again and a passing thought went through my head. I should also receive the award as I perfectly fit the criteria. Here I present my case for Bharat Ratna.

Now you would be wondering what exceptional service towards advancement of Art, Literature and Science, and in recognition of Public Service of the highest order I have given. Hold on. The argument goes like this.

Looking at the list, you will notice all these great people have made huge contributions to their respective fields. But what we usually miss is they have made even bigger sacrifices to achieve whatever they have achieved in their lives. I will explain this with the example of Lata Mangeshkar. Now imagine what she could have done, had she not chosen to become a singer. Let’s say she could have chosen Literature field. Now I do not have a slightest doubt she could have achieved the same laurels as she received as a singer. Here you are. This means she actually sacrificed her literary career (in the present case under discussion). This is just one of the sacrifices. There must be many of them.

How is it related to my case? Read on and you will be enlightened.

I will start from my childhood. When I was a child I went to school. Huh…What's exceptional about it? Everybody does that. Yes, but had I not gone to school I would have explored the nature and its beauty in a manner that nobody ever did. That would have made me a fantastic artist as being an artist is all about thinking out-of-the-box, being creative and who knows I could have been next Satyajit Ray or next Ustad Bismilla Khan. So this is my first sacrifice. After school I went to college. Again everybody does that. I chose Science stream instead of Commerce. I think you got what I am trying to say. Yes, you are right. Had I chosen Commerce stream, I could have been another Amartya Sen. This one is the second one. Then I opted for Engineering after that NITIE. Again you guessed it right, I could have pursued career in research and could have become a great scientist. Now the count is three. As you can see, I have been very conservative while counting my sacrifices and that's why I have only mentioned the major ones. There are thousands of other not so significant sacrifices which I will write in my autobiography. And the count is only going to increase as it just the beginning of my career.

Having made so many sacrifices and hopefully having a bright career ahead, is not perfectly fitting for Govt. of India to honour me with the Bharat Ratna? Just imagine what will it mean the youth all over India and world ( Thoda Jyaada Gaya Shayad….)? It will inspire millions (yes there are lots of them!!!) of young Indians, it will awaken them, it will stir them, and it will make them revolt…blah blah blah…

Now I am damn sure that after reading through you are as convinced as me. So what are you waiting for? Do what they usually do these days. Grab your cell phone. Open the Write Message window. Type Pravin and send it to 1234. For landline users, mera code hai 505 (My room number where I get such Sacred thoughts every day..) Dial 123454321 and then dial my code. Vote for me. Please, please, please…(Here you can see me pleading in typical “Indian Idol Contestant” style)

P.S.: In the hindsight I see this analysis holds true for each one of us… (Ohhh … What a discovery!!!) So I propose everybody should be given the Bharat Ratna. Imagine then everybody will be writing Bharat Ratna before their names instead of Shri/Smt. Bharat Ratna Gajodhar Raja.. Bharat Ratna Billo Rani..Wow!!! After all, I believe in the philosophy- “Kaddu katega to sabme batega…”

Here I Am

Well here I am, with some things/thoughts that I feel are worth sharing. Let us see how it turns out to be.... Next post will be my first one. This one is just an introductory note kind of thing..Actually I write a bit but this is the first time I am publishing something on net.
Uploading one of the recent pics which reminds me the fond memories of my short but sweet stay in the City of joy. This place is called as Bellur Math. Home to Great Ramakrishna Paramahansa, Guru of Swami Vivekananda. It looks awesome in the evening with the Mighty Hoogly flowing alongside. In Kolkata, they call it Ganga.
Bengali people are known for their love for arts and i think Ganga plays a very important role in that. Just by watching quietly its flow, many a thought come to you which I think stimulates a person to do something Hatke. The beautiful ghats & magnificent bridges remind us about the glorious past of Kolkata which at one time used to be the Capital of India. There are lot of temples alongside the river which look stunning in the twilight. If you ever happen to go to Kolkata, don't miss out this place. Worth a visit in the evening.