Ramble

Approximately four months since my four years ordeal at the (psychological) labor camp (i.e. college) ended and I prefer to have the expansion of B.E as Bachelor of Endurance. Recession has affected only 10% of the people directly involved in the form of layoffs but its impact is much severe upon fresh graduates. The software firm which recruited me has deferred the call without any further announcement regarding joining (People predict it may happen around May 2010). Being a student of private institutions, I yearned for holidays throughout my academic career and especially during school life I prayed god to bless (!?) me with diseases like typhoid, viral fever etc. and also dreamed about hurricane/earthquake inflicting destruction to the school.Almighty never fails to respond believers and I was finally rewarded with typhoid during the XII standard vacation and once again I convinced myself that God has provided me with a yearlong holiday in the form of recession. But instead of allowing me to take relax, some people with nefarious designs tried hard to spoil my happiness, as freewill always prevails over coercion their efforts were rendered futile. Moving to bed only at wee hours, skipping at least a meal per day has become a daily routine. (Detractors made a specious propaganda like “considering the quantity of snacks bala consumes it is unnecessary to consume food at all” and also questioned the habit of sleeping during daytime but very little did they realize bala’s ingenuity in acclimatizing himself for a job involving night duty).

Mind has started to dwell in past as future remains uncertain and impatience makes present difficult to reckon with. It is hard to differentiate confusion and procrastination; probably they could be the manifestation of indecisiveness and anxiety. One option to fritter away time is to watch television. Nowadays television brings more agony, it rarely refreshes, leading the parade of exasperating channels is Sun TV and its sister channels. Advertisements are provided with more time slots than programs but one must have great deal of tolerance to view the trailers of movies released by Sun Movies like Plunged in to Love, Illiterate, Immaculate Bell being telecasted ceaselessly once for every ten minutes in the half a dozen channels owned by Sun network. The number of times a remote control gets operated per minute is higher than the blinking rate per minute of human eye. In an era of reality shows, it is not a surprise why participants behave as though the future of their life lies on the outcome of the show and judges behave snobbish and impolite in providing response even to children solely for the purpose of improving the ratings of the show. I recently watched a singing contest reality show for children in which kids are allowed to sing less than one minute within which they get either selected or rejected. It is awful to look at the disappointed faces of the kids and won’t it result in kids’ heart getting permanently humiliated as a result of getting criticized. Whom shall we blame? Channels or judges or viewers or parents or the kids themselves. Who cares? Time moves on. Exclusive news channels like NDTV, CNN IBN, and TIMES NOW often compete with each other to sensationalize frivolous issues like frisking of SRK by the security officials at the Newark International airport, New Jersey. Who is Rakhi Sawant? Is she a princess of an erstwhile Indian monarchy to opt for swayamvara? If she wants to get wedded, she could have enrolled in matrimonial websites or in columns of newspapers or she should have asked her parents to search but what is the purpose is of making it public in the form of a reality show. Is there any mega serial without a crass plot? It is worth to watch channels like Discovery, National Geographic, History channel etc.

In India 66, 00, 00,000(six hundred million) people don’t have access to proper sanitation, 40% of children are malnourished, within few years India is slated to be the capital of diabetes and cardiac diseases as it is for tuberculosis. Tuberculosis and Malaria kills many persons daily than swine flu but the blame lies on T.B. or malaria for affecting only those people living in slum areas. It is a shame comparing India with any other developed country and again considering our culture a superior one is again a mockery by looking at the way how people behave irrespective of their education in public places. Patriotism is not at saluting the national flag during Independence Day or watching films done by Vijaikanth or supporting Team India during games. It is begins at people show courtesy to others. Farmers are the real heroes but they are the least privileged deprived of all basic facilities. India is one of the very few countries where the disparity between the various sections of society is very high. Some experts believe that a civil war is imminent within few decades. Government has spent Rs.15000 crores on constructing a nuclear submarine named Arihant to achieve a nuclear triad (ability to launch nuclear weapons through air, sea and land) however it has been callous over the plight of farmers. Government must first understand that problems lying within country are far more threatening than countries present near the border e.g. many people die due to Maoist attack than that caused by terrorists. Many Farmers commit suicide every year, steps must be taken that irrespective of monsoon failure, land gets irrigated. Connecting the rivers of India should have been completed long back; I suppose if British have ruled India they could have finished it. Many dams in Tamil Nadu like Stanley reservoir at Mettur (storage capacity around 80 tmc; it is one of the largest in southern India) were constructed by British and the government has done little to improve agriculture, it has provided with only fertilizers which increases the alkalinity of the soil. Some people argue and take pride that India is leading the world in the field of services (I.T industry) however the revenues generated whole of the Indian I.T. companies is around $60 billion which is very small when compared to earnings of multinational companies like Exxon Mobil and Wal-Mart (the former is the world’s largest oil company and the latter is the world’s largest retailer each with a turnover around $300 billion).

Due to economic crisis, appeal for government jobs has dramatically increased due to the stability it offers and no one is able to answer the question if another crisis is in due within few years, will the private companies be able to survive and again the number of ‘unemployable’ graduates churned out by the Indian education industry has started to rise exponentially every year. Having studied an electrical major it should be judicious to enter into power system associated industry but I have been placed in a software firm. Now I find myself in a quagmire as I have applied for government bank services exams too. So naturally it is difficult to prioritize which has resulted in laziness. Electrical engineering books have started to gather dust, the programming languages books which was provided to others hasn’t returned, and I am yet to touch those commerce and economics books after inscribing my name on it. Sometimes it appears this vacation is just another study holiday. Sorry, it has been a very long absence in blogosphere…..so long.