How people pass their time on internet ?

Its been a long time since I last blogged. The desire of writing has mellowed down in the past few months. It is probably a reflection of the fact that I am comfortably settled in this 'job' life. Everything seems to be going smoothly. Too smoothly in fact to bother me to think about other things - which is not necessarily a good thing.

Anyways, the reason I wrote after this long was I was tired of sitting on the internet not knowing what to do. My browser always has some specific 2-3 tabs open. Some of them are either of the 3 news website that I follow: BBC News, The Hindu and CNN-IBN. But the left most is always Gmail. It seems like a kind of OCD - the left most tab always HAS to be gmail. If it isn't, life looks incomplete - seriously !

So, I had almost exhausted most of the news articles. I had checked all the 'updates' on my Facebook account, read few cricket articles on Cricinfo. What else can I do ? Its not a rhetorical question by the way. I would actually like to know how people spend their time on internet. I might be missing on some of the good things out there.

A big dustbin



Do we have any garbage management plans in this country? I am wondering whether the effort that I put up in locating a dustbin for my trash is worth it. Does the garbage thrown in the  dustbin and thrown on a railway track end up at the same place. In this case that place is railway track of course. I have seen so many  instances when the sweeper on the railway station empties the bin on the tracks itself.



We Indians have a very poor sense of cleanliness. For us, it means keeping our immediate surrounding clean. Few minutes ago a woman sitting on the berth above me cleaned her seat, put all that garbage in a polythene and just dropped it below. It seems as if other person's right to neat and clean surroundings is oblivious to them.



To certain extent all of us are party to these crimes. There is always a  place in the neighbourhood where all the garbage is thrown. That way our homes are clean but what about our surroundings.

In the foreign countries that I have visited, garbage is separated by each individual into the disposable and non-disposable groups. Some other countries have very high rate of recycling of non-disposable waste. I would love to see something like this in India as well. I feel such a guilt in throwing a paper and a broken bulb in the same bin. With the population that we have, we may soon turn this country into a big waste land.

Gilli-danda

Few days ago when I was in Tagore Garden in Delhi, I saw a group of  young children playing gilli-danda. I watched them for sometime and was able to deduce some of the rules of the game after watching them
play for sometime.



It was such a pleasant surprise watching them  play the game. It definitely reminded me of some of the games I played during my childhood like 'sitoliya' and few others whose name I can't even recall now.

A dinner at fort

Not many things can beat the charm of a fort at night. I was in Jodhpur this weekend. The two of us went to the Mehrangarh fort at night and had dinner at the roof of one of the Mahals with nothing but candles and yellow light at distance to alight the surroundings.

The restaurant – Chokelao - serves only Rajasthani thali in the main course. For starters there are few other options. The service is not the best in the world. In fact for the first 10 minutes, the 2 of us were left waiting at the roof. A vegetarian thali costs around Rs 600, a bit on the higher side for a place like Jodhpur but still reasonable in comparison to the expensive restaurants in Delhi and Gurgaon.

 

But if you consider the view that the place has to offer, I would consider it a very good bargain. From the elevation of the fort which is itself built on a hill, you can see the lights of Jodhpur in one direction only to be matched by the majestic walls and the roof top of the fort on the other. When visiting just remember to take a good camera to capture the pics of the fort at night. I am sure you would not be disappointed by what the place has to offer.

Reasons why I think I had an awesome childhood

1. In all the different schools that I studied, there was no holiday homework given which meant I could actually enjoy my summer holidays and not have to worry about writing one page of essay everyday or solving the recap exercises of my Maths book. Every summers mother, sister and I used to go and visit our Nana-Nani, accompanied by cousins of our age, playing hide and seek in our maternal house.

2. Going to my hometown every Diwali. Jains celebrate Diwali as an occasion when Mahavir attained Nirvana. On the morning of Diwali, everyone in the family (actually all the Jains in that town) used to go out to offer Coconut Laddus in the different temples (there are 6-7 of them). And on the next day - Rama Shama - my grandfather, father, sister and I used to visit different acquaintances. Those were the days when my sister and I used to judge a household by the sweets that they serve. There were brownie points for those serving chocolates. We use to sleep on the roof every night, sometimes counting stars, wishing for the tall neem tree in the next house to sway and waking up in the mornings to see other people sleeping on their roofs. Sometime, we my grandfather used to give a glass of wheat to me and my sister which we then used to feed to the pigeons wishing they would come in numbers and getting disappointed when they didn't.

3. There were play grounds near the houses that I lived in. This may not sound as a reason for which I should actually go to lengths as writing a post. But when I see our metros, I see apartments, offices, club houses, community centers, malls but never a play ground. A place where you can go along with your friends, play some sport, engage in some petty quarrels and come back home, all sweaty. I still remember the days when I use to go to the playground every evening and play football or cricket.

4. I never went to tuitions. Thus at home, I could read those lessons of  History or Geography which were, as told by our teachers, not in the course. Or could read those stories of Hindi and English textbooks that I really enjoyed reading. It also meant that I didn't have to read Physics, Chemistry or Maths everyday - one reason which helped preserved my interest for these subjects.

5. I didn't have mobile phones and internet as companions. Thus, I had all the time in the world to myself. It also meant that to complete an assignment of General Knowledge, I had to actually take out old newspapers and read through the news.

6. I got a chance to travel across India - an advantage that you enjoy when your father is working for a PSU. Those trips really make for some of the most vivid and vibrant memories that I have of my childhood. Whether it was walking through a wooden house in Shilong, or standing at Kanyakumari and watching the water in different colours,  or sitting on a beach in Trivandrum and watching a sunset or walking through the Cellular Jail in Port Blair or playing in pristine, untouched shallow waters of Andaman or standing in front of a giant Golden statue of Buddha at Rajgiri, I remember it all.

Contradictions of India

Read this news in The Times of India - National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) has recommended to raise the income limit of "creamy layer" for OBCs from 4.5L to 9L per annum.

In a country where poverty level has been set at an individual income of Rs 32 per day, a family income of 4.5 lakh was not considered sufficient for defining who should be considered "backward" enough to be eligible for the quota benefits.

What is it ? A new attack on our sensibilities !

If disaster strikes..

I am watching Day After Tomorrow, one of those disaster movies in which earth has been struck by one of those disasters which has wiped much of the mankind. And suddenly a thought comes to my mind. If something like that really happens and few among the mankind needs to be evacuated to start a civilization again, then who will be the ones who would be saved.

Scientists would definitely make the cut. Then there would be some doctors and engineers. There might be some lawyers and philosophers to establish a rule of law. There could be some bankers, accountant and economists to establish a monetary system and enable the exchange of goods and services. There might also be some farmers - growing a vegetation is not all that an easy task. There could also be some athletes to produce genetically resistive species. There would certainly be some politicians and that to for two reasons. Firstly, people might think that they would need a leader for a new start. And secondly and more importantly, these would actually be the people calling the shots for this evacuation mission.

But would there be a consultant? Probably. To ensure that best practices are followed :P