Month: February 2005

So the last two days were quiet hectic. Election preparation deadlines, Pitu’s marriage, Rakesh Sir, Batul Da, Madhubani paintings, Novels so much to write. Just before I write let me take rest today, and will sleep early. From tomorrow I have to start the mornings with Vairav again.

As Pitu is Prashant’s sister, she is JNVP 1^st batch’s sister too. Tomorrow is her marriage at Purnea. How jhola wale patrakar bhaiya 🙂 (she used to call me) can miss her marriage? During Holy celebrations, the batchmates used to gather at Prashant’s house. The delicacies prepared by aunt, Yum Yum…… and quarrel with Pitu in the mean time (when aunt is not present there) are still fresh in memory. Still last year I have found her same talking machine and criticizer of us, the CS bhaiyas. She still gives good reasons for her profession as sun baked civil engineer than comfortable programmers who sit in ACs. During discussions, by hooks and crooks (I know Pitu is not reading this 🙂 ), she will win her point of discussion. Any way it’s nice to see her winning. If she loses then we are not certain of her mood :-D.

Whether the smiling, honest, quarrelling girl will change after marriage, I wonder. To me some persons if not change its better.But what a vacuum we will feel once she leaves the house is beyond my descriptive ability.

We wish her share of all the joys we all brothers have.

There are many ways we can know about a person. First and best way is to meet the person, know his/her address and interact with him/her. And this interaction is not necessary for an experienced person; the gestures of the other new person itself tell many things.

But I am not sure of the conditions when this method fails. There are cases, when a person fails to know his/her own blood, when the child grows up and gets changed completely or the relatives/friends turn out foes. To me it’s the faith on the identity which needs to be maintained otherwise identity becomes polymorphic and vice versa.

Without seeing the person in real life one can judge about the person to an extent with the writings and expressions of the person. The writings and expressions are the reflections of her/his personality. Anyone’s handwriting is also the identity of the person but this method is uncommon and requires a lot of experience. I am fortunate to find this capability in me to an extent. Hearing a person’s speeches and songs also give some identity of the person. Contemporary paintings, sculpture, poems, novels and many other forms of expression also tell about the thinking and mentality of the creator and the world around him/her. Of course the visual media is another way to know about the person like cinema or television but this gets limited to identity of actors and performers.

If you ask me, who I am? To me, it’s quiet difficult defining myself and give you my complete identity. And I fail to explain it to my or your satisfaction.

In this net culture the identity of a person needs redefining. Digital bits flow with expressions, knowledge and also confusions. Even if I am entangled in this web; I try to make a negligible identity here too. I see my tiny Turing Machine lost here although it’s not halted.

This negligible identity when again questioned puts me in a strange situation. I have been thinking that my words, drawings will be my identity, but that was my mistake. How I can expect everyone to see through my eyes? To my present capacity, my identity is my blog content and my photograph at my profile. May in coming days, I will meet more and more people all over India in real.

Rubberi Devi, as the name suggests, is a goddess made up of Rubber. She is the most talked after goddess of Bihar. She exists everywhere, especially in the homes of poors, illiterates, and backwards. There are houses where you can find her photos in prayer rooms. But most of the time she exists sticking on to be the broken walls to protect them falling, thatched walls of mud houses to prevent cold airs coming in. While walking on the broken roads of Bihar, one can find her in abundance on electricity polls, she has enough resistance to cease further transmission of the electricity and she is successful too. Many people who are minorities, even if they don’t worship any God, they will pray her at least once in a 5 year.

My readers may ask me, why she was named as Rubberi Devi? It’s a small story,and I will share it with you. In short her father has special affection with milk. He once went to south India for pilgrimage after her pretty daughter was born. There he saw a new kind of tree. Sitting beneath the tree, just for quest, he pierced the bark of the tree and to his surprise; he found that a liquid like milk is flowing out from the wounded bark. After seeing this new thing in his life, his joys were out of limit and he thought he has discovered a tree of milk. He asked the local people about the tree’s name and knew that it was a rubber tree. He determined to name her newly born daughter Rubberi.

But different people tell different reasons too about her name. Rubberi Devi never had her own strength. For all the years on the throne, she always required some strength to sit there. The supporting strength is well built for her and still being maintained. She cares for every devotee of her. Her eyes gleam with joy, when she sees any laloo – pachhu coming to her as devotee. She keeps these devotees to entertain her other devotees when she meets them.

There is some thing more about her greatness. She never talks in any foreign language but does not care about using foreign words too. And to be certain, Rubberi Devi has a mouth of rubber too. What kind of spears will come out of the bow is difficult to predict.

She is faithful to her ‘small’ family. And there are some specialties in her personality that, you can’t tell that she can be a goddess. Neither she neither wears fancy jewellery nor is seen in makeup any where. She is fond of cooking and is the most preferred cook of the most important man of Bihar. The goddess of women empowerment is also the goddess of common woman of India for her faithfulness and partnership with her husband. Even if she is prayed all over Bihar, she finds herself weak in front of the living God, the Sun.

May be some effect of these goodness, now a day, the Biharis seem to make her the unchallenged goddess in the Bihar again. Rubberi Devi, showing a big laloopop in her left hand, is blessing all the Biharis to ‘survive’ and be happy. She is reappearing all over the Bihar towns again in posters. But how long the stickiness of Rubberi Devi will last, I wonder. Since last many years she is marvel of her elasticity. Why not till now any one is able to bend her down? The great Rubberi Devi of Bihar!

My other Posts in this series :
Bihar – the write thing! – (5) – Tea Production
Bihar – the write thing! – (4) – Common man and Media.
Bihar – the write thing! – (3) – Democracy
Bihar – the write thing! – (2) – Common Life
Bihar – the write thing! – (1) – Origin as a State

P. Chidambaram’s decision to raise the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to 74 percent in telecom sector and plans to implement the universal licensing regime by the middle of year seems to give a new turn to the Telecom policy of finance ministry.

The collation Govt. with so much leftist outcry against the increase of FDI is being silenced by the PC’s statement that every possible outcome has been well studied as well as security concerns.
Main points are worth notable:

• Majority of the directors including the chairman, MD, and CEO, “shall be” resident Indians.
• Al least one investor will have to hold 10% of the equity.
• Chief technical officer and chief technology officer “should be” resident Indians.
• No call between two points in India can be routed via any place outside the country.
• The company shall not transfer information on subscribers and details of infrastructure
• The company must provide traceable identity of subscribers.
• Network management and repairs cannot be outsourced outside the country.

At the same time the major players in the industry circumspect the possible outcomes after the universal license regime is implemented. And the universal licensing regime will allow the companies to offer additional services like television, internet and to VSAT links apart from telephony.

Major six players like BSNL, MTNL, Reliance, Tata, Bharati, Hutch in which the former two who are likely to be merged are aggressive to expand their network and value added services. For the telecom majors the FDI will certainly improve their operation performance. But the question is why the present govt. has to decide the increase in the FDI from 49 percent to 74 percent. The reasons are obvious need of huge investments of funds in the telecom sector as the different targets were set by the govt. By 2007, the national target of ‘250 million phones’, needs 1,60,000 crores and it’s impossible for Indian investors and FDI are needed. The Financial analysts are seeing it as a next step towards consolidation in the long run.

May we will live in a better India then if theories meet the practicals.

“I want to eliminate ‘kills’ from army’s vocabulary”, General Joginder Jaswant Singh roared.

General J.J. Singh, the new army chief, who took over as the chief of the army on Monday, seems to make a transition in the Indian Army. At present, when the insurgent prone states cried foul against army atrocities and youths were thrown out of running train by the army personals and cease fire is going on in J&K, the announcements from the new four star general are very important. The image of an army personal with a pinpointed carbine towards the people and readiness to trigger and the feeling of the people getting intimidated is not only present in India, Iraqis have worst experience in this regard. The first Sikh army chief’s effort to scrap this image of army is worth watching. He will award the army troops not on the basis of kills or captures of so called insurgents but after inspecting the reports of local civic authorities like superintendent of police and the head of the panchayat.

WHAM, Winning Hearts And Minds, which was much talked about in the senior army circuit seems to be declared publicly. General Singh, the 22^nd occupant of the office, himself made the statements may be too early in his tenure, but the people of those insurgent prone states will be relieved a lot if the statements will be reflected in actions by the army personals.

At the same time General JJ can’t be underestimated for his winning capability. When he was the company commander in J&K he used the guns loaded with roses and frequently meet and address the common people and listen them to win their confidence.

Today morning in newspaper, I saw a big photograph of Sania Mirza, with a huge garland containing enough flowers, to cover up the whole tennis court, around her neck and a crown and a big sword in her hand. The caption of the photo was “Burden of a billion”. This picture was snapped at her college at the felicitation program. This picture might have inspired the budding tennis players especially, the court girls. I too appreciate and admire the effort she put in her tennis career and her future plan. Good things must be encouraged but adoring one in such way, leaves some issues unanswered.

It’s nice to see that advertisement agencies come forward to these photogenic and popular faces and help them financially. No wonder if within some days their posters will start appearing on the roadside shops .People will decorate the living room walls with them. Some of them will put them for inspiration and mostly just for decoration.

I have seen many room walls filled with Aishwarya, Hirtik, Sachin, and so on. May these so called fans not put the big poster of their family members among those posters, who do support them in need! And among the fans, most of the time used in discussions, about their performance and so on ends without any net result but killing own time and potential. These Idol worshipping will exist in India with a lot of drama till people have free time.

On the other side of the coin, after so much adoration, the career of those performers will come under strict scanner, the expectations will increase. Some day when they will again leave for some major match abroad, people will wish them good luck with bouquets. By chance if the result is negative there and they will return home barehanded, only family members and very few supporters will be waiting on the airport.

These idols along with appreciation, support and finance need competitors inside the country, such that their performance will increase during the practice sessions. And to create competitors, we need to disseminate the idol worshipping efforts for them who are playing around us. There are many more potential sportswomen/men like Karnam Malleshwari, Milkha Singh, Anju Bobby George and P.T. Usha, Baichung Bhutia, Dhanraj Pillai around us who need moral and financial support, along with competition and they are capable to excel in Olympics.