Is the Middle Class Draupadi or Menaka in the corruption drama?

The middle class (including traders), unfailingly portray themselves as Draupadi, when it comes to corruption. Don’t we, many a times, play Menaka in the corruption drama? Our reflex action is to break a rule and bribe when hauled up.

During the Anna Hazare show, a TV channel showed a hilarious video featuring, `a victim of corruption’ who had paid bribe for jumping a traffic signal. This lady had jumped a traffic signal, because nobody was around but was caught by a traffic cop, who was hiding behind a tree and she paid a bribe. Hello, Madam, the cop lost 2-1 to you on the dishonesty count. He took a bribe from you, no doubt, but you broke a traffic rule as well as paid a bribe, instead of a fine. This is Middle Class attitude towards corruption. If they break a rule, that is fine but if they pay a bribe to escape punishment on that account, it is corruption.

Our traders also agitated for a corruption free India.  In reality, they disregard civic, health, weights & measures, labour laws and tax norms but get away due to corruption.  Most traders in our cities consider footpath as an extension of their shop and pay a bribe to ensure continuance of the encroachment. Are they Menaka or Draupadi in the corruption saga?

 All the bloggers ranting for anti-corruption, kindly check if the software in your PC is a legal one. Are we not fueling corruption, when we buy pirated software, DVDs and books? How many of us have built their houses as per the approved plan? Don’t we bribe the municipal inspector who comes for inspection?  Why do we agree to pay/receive in black when we buy or sell a flat? Most parents in a benevolent mood allow their under aged children to drive bikes. When the kid commits an accident, don’t these parents run pillar to post, to ensure that a case is not registered? Are we a Draupadi or Menaka in these cases?

Do we have any idea about the manpower and resultant expenditure that will have to be incurred to have an effective Lokpal? The global average is 1 policeman for every 200 citizens. Even if it is implemented, only for central government servants, who total around 5 million, the strength of Lokpal will be almost 25,000 employees. Will the part time revolutionaries (especially the techies and MBAs) quit their high paying jobs and join Lokpal to ensure integrity at the working level? It is easy to scream `Inquilab Zindabad’ but difficult to be an instrument for change.

There is a demand, for a citizen charter setting time limits, for each work in a Government office. The Government offices, in turn, are going to come up with demands for additional manpower, to meet these schedules. How much of manpower is this going to add to the Government machinery? What about the expenditure on account of increased manpower? Does the civil society have an idea about this?

Adequately staffed government departments have its own perils for the citizens. Just take the case of Bangalore Traffic Police, as against an adequate manpower of 10,000, they have around 2,500. As a result, many of the traffic offences go unnoticed and even if noticed, not penalized. Guess what would happen, if traffic police gets fully staffed. What would happen if the municipal authorities get adequately staffed and adopt a Singaporean model for penalising civic transgressions? Given our penchant for breaking traffic/civic rules, they will become self financing within a year.

Corruption is not a disease in India; it is a way of life. If you want to change the way you live, you must change the way you think. We need smarter solutions, to reduce the need for public, to go to a Government office. Merely adding a few thousand policemen will not get rid of the problem, it will only add to the layers of Bureaucracy.

The Civil Society should demand, for, inclusion of a clause that post Lokpal, the bribe giver should also be punished? Post Lokpal, it becomes our moral obligation, to complain against a demand for bribe, rather than comply with it, even if we are at fault. We should walk the talk, shouldn’t we?

I Me and Myself discuss on Share Market crisis

I, Me and Myself met up recently and during the course of conversation started talking on the stock market. Needless to say our consciences ICON, MECON AND MYSELFCON were there.

I is in serious problems because of the stock market meltdown but still swears by the markets. He considers himself an expert investor (actually he is an ECHO-SPURT just repeating what the analysts talk on business channels)

Me is a WINDOW SHOPPING investor, that is, he has not invested even a single pie in the market but keeps on adding shares in the mock portifolio in web sites. Whenever these shares go up, he gets depressed and elated when share value drops. Needless, he is enjoying the market melt down.

Myself is a HARDCORE BJ FAN (BRICKS AND JEWELS). He buys gold and land like a ritual. His land records files are as bulky as the files with the Registrar of Births and Deaths. Needless to say, with the spurt in the prices of Gold, he is as delighted as a monkey in a glass cage with a banana dangling on the other side.

I started off the discussion by saying `I just can’t believe that Standard & Poor have downgraded US economy. It is a bloodbath in markets across world’

ICON `UNFORTUNATELY THERE IS NO DRS IN S&P RATINGS :P’

MECON `NOR S&P WILL BE NAÏVE ENOUGH TO CALL BACK IN THE SPIRIT OF THE MARKET :P :P’

Me `But  analysts say that in a few days shares will be available at rock bottom prices’

ICON `DON’T BELIEVE THAT WINDOW SHOPPER, IT IS NOT A GOOD IDEA TO HAVE YOUR BOTTOM ON THE ROCK WHEN IT IS HOT’

MECON `REMEMBER IF IT GOES WRONG, THE ONLY PULL BACK WILL BE FROM BANKS OF YOUR HOME, CAR, ETC’

Myself `Ha, ha, all the global investors are turning to gold, I have lots of them and waiting to be encashed’

MYSELFCON ` TRY ENCASHING THOSE ORNAMENTS, YOUR WIFE WILL ENSURE THAT YOU ARE WAITING TO BE HOSPITALISED’

ME `The mess that the world economy has landed into, don’t know where all the money is going to come from to bail it out?’

MECON ` DON’T WORRY, OUR TEMPLES, ASHRAMS AND TIHAR RESIDENT INDIANS (TRIS) WILL BUY OUT US ECONOMY.’

Myself `Bulls, Bears and now you two asses :p :p’

MYSELFCON `AND YOU A PIG WHICH KEEPS ON HOGGING GOLD AND LAND ‘

I `This global crisis won’t affect our country in a big way, we are well insulated’

ICON `YES, UNLIKE OTHER COUNTRIES WE PERFORM LAKSHMI POOJA EVERY YEAR :P’

ME `The Government should come out with a stimulus package once again’

MECON `IF  ECONOMIES HAVE TO BE REVIVED WITH STIMULUS PACKAGES, WHY PEOPLE RIDICULE THOSE WHO GO IN FOR SILICON IMPLANTS :P?’

Myself `What happened to the fundamentals and what are the charts saying, he, he, none of this applies in BJ, it grows everytime you put it in err invest in it’

I `Cut the crap, some of the bluechip stocks have shown growths in excess of 100%’

MYSELF `In the interim how many times have they dipped and caused you stress, but BJs never make you anxious’

ME `Book Values of most shares are at attractive levels’

MECON `RAMALINGA RAJU HAS ALREADY PROVED THAT MOST TIMES IT IS BOOKED VALUE’

ICON ` AND PROFIT BOOKING IS DONE ONLY BY THOSE WHO KNOW TOMORROW’

Myself `A penny stock becomes bluechip when a bull shits err.. sits on it and a bluechip becomes a midcap when a bear bugs it’

MYSELFCON `AND ORNAMENT GOLD BECOMES A DEATH WARRANT WHEN A GUY COMES BEHIND YOU BRANDISHING A KNIFE’

I `I challenge you Myself, within the next one year I will prove you Shares are the best form of investment’

Myself `Ya and I need not prove that BJ investment is the best thing to do rather than getting mauled by a bull or bear’

As the three depart, ICON, MECON AND MYSELFCON sing

BULLS AND BEAR WE ARE THEY SAY

INVESTORS MONEY IS WHAT THEY PREY

AT OUR COST, THEY MAKE HAY

THE FUNDAMENTALS ARE STRONG SAID ONE EXPERT

ANOTHER SAID, CHARTS ARE WAITING TO SPURT

INVEST FOR THE LONG TERM SAID MANY

BOOKING PROFITS OFTEN IS WHAT THEY DID, TO TAKE MY LAST PENNY

HERE WE ARE THE LAMBS

BELIEVING IN MARGINS AND DERATIVES

NOT LISTENING TO THE DISCLAIMERS

ONLY BELIEVING IN THE STOCK TIPS

Cliches from Bollywood of the 70's

http://leadcap.org/

Bollywood of the 70s had its own charm. Movies were firmly moving away from the black and white era towards color films. Eastman color movies; mix of melodious and jarring songs; action films; long lost brother tales; plumpy heroines, etc contributed to the aura of films of those days. Like films of every era, they had their own clichés. The most interesting was certain clichés in films of those days which are carried on till date:

Brothers-in-arms

1. Separated brothers unite courtesy a family song which they remember with lyrics even after ages. (Wah Kya Memory hain!)

2. Long lost brothers never recognised each other till the last reel. (or else how to run the film for 18 reels)

3. It was mandatory for one of the separated brothers to become a cop and another thief. (we love playing police-chor)

Herogiri

4. Hero becomes unrecognizable to the villain once he wears a false beard. (Get your eyes checked Mr. Villain)

5. Hero an honest police inspector resides in a palatial bungalow. (Sab filmi chakar ka kamal)

6. The hero if he was a smuggler never traded in Guns and Drugs to prove his patriotism. (Desh Premi?)

7. The hero’s father was usually a drunkard or a poor school teacher. (Mera Baap aisa hain!)

8. If the Hero was a journalist, he would be honest, sport a beard and live in a disorganized room. (Press guys have not paid me!)

9. The Hero could earn Rs.1 lakh in a year by driving taxi day and night. (Power of hard work!)

10. The bullets in a Hero’s gun never got over. (Fortune favors the favorites!)

11. Before pulling the trigger, the hero would give a sermon to the villain and also tell him the reason for each of the bullets. (Total transparency)

12. The hero driving on a vacant road meant villains surrounding him for a fight. (We don’t create public nuisance)

13. The hero would react only after the third blow and that too after blood spilled out of his tooth. (Khoon ki Keemath!)

Villain ya Bakra.

14. The villain’s garage walls had an entrance to his underground palace.(Wonder how they managed such marvelous constructions without the cops knowing?)

15. The villain would be busy trying to rape the heroine until the hero came and bashed him up. (Basanthi ki izzat ka sawal!)

16. The Villain bullets never got the hero. (Ancestors of the KKR team!)

17. Villains for some strange reason wore dark glasses even during night times.(Suffering from conjunctivitis?)

18. Villains had crocodiles, gas chambers, ferocious dogs, etc to torture the hero’s family in the last scene. (All of it no use, only loss in the end)

19. The main villain always spoke with his back to the camera and showed his face only in the last scene to be caught by the police. (The only suspense in the film!)

20. The villain had an army of goons who love getting beaten up by the Hero. (The usual punching bags!)

Thoda Romani Ho Jaye

21. Twining of flowers meant hero and heroine were lip locking. (Sorry we are Indians, no kissing please!)

22. Hero and Heroine traveling in the same train compartment were bound to fall in love. (How else to time pass!)

23. The film always ended with a clipping from a popular duet. (Meant to say they happily lived ever after)

24. Heroine’s father never approved of his daughter’s love. (Kahani mein twist)

25. Hero and Heroine had to hate each other in their first few scenes. (Hatred leads to love)

26. Usually it was the Hero’s sermon which compelled the Heroine to switch over from Jeans to Saree. (Moral police???)

Ek Chotisi love story

27. The Heroine who is constantly reminded of “THE AMANATH” by her mother would invariably lose it to the Hero on a rainy day in a depilated building. (The Rebel!)

28. After taking her AMANATH and making her pregnant, the hero would die in an accident. (Shankar, Main teri bache ki maa banawali hoon aur tum Shankarji ko pyari hogaye ho!)

29. The Heroine rejected by the Hero family would attempt suicide to be recovered by a Christian priest. (The lost lamb!)

Bonus Cliches

30. Whirlpool over a characters head meant a flashback. (You will jump into one after seeing the flashback!)

31. Anglo Indian ladies wore short skirts; worked as club dancers or stenos and were usually named Lillly, Mary or Rita. (Glamour ke liye)

32. South Indians always started a sentence in Hindi with “Ayio” (Our idea of comedy!)

33. Something wrong was bound to happen after a happy family song. (Life is full of surprises!)

34. The Heroine had become a pickpocket or club dancer only to support aged parents; a blind sister and drunkard brother. (Summit of Sacrifice!)

35. A character diagonised with cancer always wore a shawl. (I don’t want to catch cold, cancer is enough.)

36. The CBI officer always wore a raincoat like suit and smoked a pipe. (La Sherlock Holmes!)

I Me and Myself Drainstrom about Education in India (Part II)

Part I Link

http://balu036.blogspot.com/2011/04/i-me-and-myself-drainstrom-about.html

I, Me and Myself meet up recently to discuss about Primary Education in India today. As always the snipers, ICON, MECON AND MYSELFCON also came.

Me started "I can't believe that *** school has added international school to its name. They don’t even have place to park their school bus and they call themselves an international school and on this pretext they have increased their fees by 30%".

MECON "You dummy, they have a website and hence they call themselves an international school"

Myself "In that school, syllabus is completed 2 times in a single year. Xth standard students have to pay a fine even if they are found laughing inside the campus"

MYSELFCON "You should be happy that school management does not use them for construction work"

I "That is ok, what about *** School, admission form is issued only if parents are post graduates"

ICON "Thank god! They don’t insist that both parents should be drawing salary in the highest income tax bracket"

Me "If parents have to teach children at home, why should we send them to school paying such high fees?"

MECON "It is just like that, what practice you get in a driving school is not sufficient for driving safely on the road. Ultimately what practice you get in your car counts"

MYSELF "Education is becoming an absurd business. My daughter's school they insist that we buy uniform, text books, note books and even lunch boxes from the school authorities"

I "What is this lunch boxes also from the school, this cant be true. You did not ask why?"

Myself "I did ask, they say it is to ensure that all children eat the same quantity of food. Ofcourse for asking this question, I had to pay the APE fees, I mean Advice for Parents Enlightenment Fees"

MYSELFCON "Ofcourse, after paying the fees, he was driving and cursing like an ape".

Me "This is nothing in my daughter's school alongwith the fees, we are supposed to deposit into the school bank account FARDt i.e. Fine Amount Reimbursement Deposit, so everytime a student commits an offence, the account will be debited"

MECON "They could have very well called it FART"

I "Just like prepaid mobile, this is prepaid fines"

ICON "It is time that traffic police introduced something like that for you"

Me "There is a plethora of celebrations these days viz., Annual Day, Sports Day, Founders Day, School Day and Bus Day. Worse recently they celebrated Earth Day and asked the children to walk 3 kms from school to the venue. They made them stand in dark for an hour and for that charged a fee of Rs.500/-"

Myself " Be happy that they don't celebrate Farmville Day and ask the students to gift things like sapling, cow, elephant or even a pig"

MYSELFCON "Actually gifting pig would be a great idea, easy to rear and when it does breed, a bounty to share"

I "There is no point in discussing further. Education has become a full fledged business, let us leave."

ICON "Yes boss, that realization of yours is a SPEAKASIA moment of truth"

As the three leave, ICON, MECON AND MYSELFCON sing

ABCEFG, C is your child,
D to E you are Desperate to get them Educated
F with G, Schools are Flushing with Greed
H and I, Hypocracy and Irrationality of parents is their feed
J to K, Judge to Kabadiwala wants his child to study in English.
LM Lots of Money they spend
NOP No options for Parents they say in the end.
QRS The schools quietly rake in stacks of fund.
U and V, Underhand and Vicious methods are part of their blend.
W? Where is the law of the land?
X Y Xtreme corruption in education but nobody does a Jantar Mantar for this Y?
Z People should get the zeal to arrest this disgusting trend.

I, Me and Myself discuss Anna Hazare's revaluation err. revolution

http://leadcap.org/

The previous part

http://balu036.blogspot.com/2011/04/i-me-and-myself-discuss-world-cup.html

The other day I, Me and Myself got together and discussed the second "greatest" victory India has got on the "Jan Lokpal Bill", thanks to Anna Hazare's revaluation err revolution.

As usual they were accompanied by their conscience viz., I-Con, Me-Con and Myself-Con.

I first reached the venue. The meeting was held a roadside hotel. I sat down and saw the owner beating up black and blue, a small kid for breaking a cup.

I was thinking in terms of doing an Anna Hazare on child labour when ICON said "No, baby, No, you don’t have type of media connections. Don’t force yourself in that boy's place"

I recognised that the owner was a vociferous participant in Anna Hazare's Revolution and decided against protesting because the cause of Jan Lok Pal Bill should not be weakened. You see the cause is more important than the antecedents of those involved in the struggle.

ICON "Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr….. no, it is not an Ad jingle, just that I am having a constipation problem after being subject to this absurd logic. This guy sucks"

Meanwhile, Me and Myself joined I. They did their customary hi-fis and Myself began "Friends, Well Begun is Half Done. We should take corruption head-on and not rest till the Jan Lok Pal Bill is passed"

MYSELFCON "When did you begin taking corruption head-on? Oh, achaa, achaa, that Jantar Mantar show where you shouted in the presence of cameras, so many anti-corruption slogans"

Me "The corrupt are at our feet. Their latest attempt to malign the civil society has failed, he, he"

MECON "Just ensure that you are not hanging upside down because then your head will be at their feet"

I "Once JLP is passed, corruption will become a thing of the past"

ICON "Aree Baap re, so will undervaluing property tax; violating approved building plan; using child labour at home; using of domestic cylinder for car; etc. I pity, it seems you are cutting off the branch on which you are sitting"

Myself "Have you given a missed call to the India Against Corruption number. 25 lakhs calls are required and only 5 lakhs have been received"

MYSELFCON "Such a pity, the educated middle class can't afford a missed call or are they scared that their numbers will be noted down?"

ICON " Come to think of it, 1.5 crore people use the same shampoo Katrina uses to fight dandruff, but to fight corruption they can't dial the same number, the other five lakhs have dialed. I think Katrina should have been used to promote this number"

I "Never mind, we will give umpteen calls to that number. Do you know the sort of mass participation in the rally. Even my daughther's school principal participated in the rally"

ICON "You mean the same lady who collects donation from you every year without a receipt"

Myself "What a bold choice by Anna to include a father and son in the Committee? They are the only two in the country who understand the law and its nuances word by word"

MYSELFCON "OMG! you mean to say all the other retired judges and lawyers are dumb"

I "Anna has strongly denounced his fast being called as a blackmail."

Me "That is stale news, he has said that he won't mind resorting to such a blackmail once again"

MECON "Naturally, the next round will be after the IPL and the cameras would be idle and waiting to click"

Myself "and very rightly he does not believe in the election process. He has agreed that despite his "huge support base", he will loose deposit in the elections.

Me "Does that mean lakhs and lakhs of people who support his rallies, won't come and vote for him?"

MECON "No, it means across the country, there were only a handful of people supporting the cause and they also turned up, only for a photo-op?"

I "There is no meaning in these elections and that is why I don’t go to vote. I prefer writing blogs or clicking "like" buttons on Facebook for anti corruption crusades"

The three suddenly realise that it is time for the all important IPL match between Mumbai & CSK. They get ready to leave.

ICON, MECON AND MYSELFCON sing

Democracy is what they want, what they want

Vote is what they won't, what they won't!

Anti Corruption is what they bark, what they bark

Self discipline is what they lack, what they lack!

Popularity is what they crave, what they crave

Always, their skin is what they save, what they save!

Tokenism is what they show, what they show

Sacrifice is what they slew, what they slew

Author's take

With or without, lok pal,

corrupt know how to make the country crawl!

I, Me and Myself discuss World Cup Victory

I, Me and Myself met up again but this time to discuss the great World Cup Victory. This period was so emotional and patriotic for us Indians. We “sacrificed” so many things to watch this world cup. During this period we have motivated our team through various methods like ridicule, abuse, disowning, etc. We did all this so that they should play as good as we do in our weekend matches. It is not just the cricket team, we subject our children also to the same treatment, when they fail to get that extra mark than our colleague, relative or neighbour’s child. Victory achieved, we decided to celebrate the same, showering out of the book praises on the team.

As it has become mandatory this time also, ICON, MY CON AND MYSELF CON ( the abbreviated forms of our conscience) accompanied us to the celebration.

I – yes, yes, yes, we have done it. We are the world champions.

Me:- Yes, Captain Cool Dhoni has proved himself both as a player and captain.

MECON:- Are you not the same guy who started writing a blog “Captain Cool makes Indian fans a fool” when Dhoni got out?

Myself: No, I am not yet convinced with his skills as a captain. I think he is lucky more than anything else.

MYSELFCON: Maybe he should offer you a mixie, grinder or possibly a few goats to convince you of his skills

I: You are correct to an extent, he should have not played Sreesanth in the Final. We could have won the match without a sweat if he had played Ashwin.

ICON: Yeah, if you were the captain, Indian would have won the world cup in the quarterfinals itself.

Me:- Sachin finally has a world cup in his crown. He played truly blemishless spotless cricket throughout the world cup. The boundaries went like a tracer bullet.

MECON: My first advice control the Ravi Shastri dialect. This was the same guy who scribbled in his facebook after the S/F first innings “Sachin scores 85 in six innings” ..

Myself: I will make my son a cricketer. I will make him play IPL15 err. World Cup 2023. I will put him in a cricket coaching camp this summer holidays.

MYSELFCON: I know you are more interested in making him play only IPL. Anyways put your son quickly in the coaching camp before they also start collecting donation or Government introduces reservations even in cricket, he, he.

Me : I never thought we will make it beyond the quarterfinal stage and even had written a blog and kept on how miserable the Indian Cricket Team is. Luckily they won, otherwise I would have mincemeat out of them quoting statistics from 1950 onwards.

MECON: Even your parents thought you would never make it beyond the tenth grade. What to do, the best laid plans of man, mice and lice go wrong. Anyhow keep your blog, you can always do some minor changes and publish it, if they lose badly in England or Australia.

I: Why Sehwag had to play such a stupid shot of the second ball of a final. He is trigger happy/

ICON:- quite correct, unfortunately, he does not get the same time to play a shot, that you time and again get to correct your presentations in office

Myself:- And why did Gambhir had to play such an atrocious shot at 97?

MYSELFCON:- He did the same thing you do in traffic when the red signal is about to end.

Me:- Whatever you say, Sri Lankan crowd is not patriotic like us. The team was never hounded on arrival by press nor the fans burn their effigies nor they stoned the cricketers houses. So dispassionate they are about their country. Anyhow let us began the celebrations, Cheers!!!!

ICON, MECON AND MYSELFCON together say : but they stood together as a nation to get rid of a terrorist organisation

I, Me and Myself discusss politics, egypt and budget

http://leadcap.org/

I, Me and Myself met up again to discuss forming the BLOOP party. Unfortunately this time also, ICON, MY CON AND MYSELF CON accompanied us to the meeting.

Me: Myself, have you finalized our party goals?

MECON: and what were you doing, finding fault with the BCCI cricket team?

Myself: Let us put the goals on the backburner, they are so much in conflict with national interest

MYSELFCON: you mean your interests?

I: Let us sleep over it, something better will come out in the morning.

ICON: Hope it is not SHIT, I meant Senseless Hollow i-talk.

Me: But then how do we publicise our party?

I: Corruption has gone beyond the limits. We should instigate an Egypt here. That would be a great publicity for our party.

MECON: I know you can only imagine the dirty things you could have done with such money.

Myself: Boss, till world cup I will be busy making changes to my SUPER SELECTOR TEAM and playing various fantasy cricket shows and after that there is IPL. So schedule this Egypt after IPL.

Me: How about in the gap between world cup and IPL, there is a fortnight gap.

I: Hello, in between world cup and IPL, I have booked for a family vacation for Europe at a big discount. If I miss it for any reason, my wife will make me permanently stay on the streets.

ICON: Think again, worse could happen, you could become an Egyptian Mummy.

Myself: Actually, I think we have no problems in our country. We have enough income and can always afford the bribes and inflation. It is just that we cannot tolerate these politicians making such big money. It is the poor guys who have to do such struggle. This has to be a bottoms-up approach.

MYSELCON: PEPSI SHOULD GIVE YOU AND AD FOR PALTI TALK.

I: Thankfully, the Railway Budget has not increased any of the fares. That is the way things should be.

ICON: Just wait till the next train accident, the same guy will write blogs after blogs about rail safety and the wrong policy of not raising fares.

Myself: I am very disappointed. These guys provide 50% concession for press correspondents twice a year, why not something to us bloggers also. We don’t write any better err… I mean any inferior stuff to those guys.

MYSELFCON: True, they write without evaluating the facts and you write based on their reports.

I: They should have reintroduced the Standard Deduction. These guys give all the benefits to the poor guys both in subsidies and cash during elections.

ICON: and what loyalty do you show to the country, after getting all those tax deductions, fuel subsidy, etc. leave alone go and vote, you don’t even register yourself as a voter.

Me: Thanks to the Very Senior Citizens category introduced, my grandfather is having all the property in his name and we don’t have pay any tax on that income.

MECON: Thank god, the old man will be allowed to stay alive for a lot more years, he and his dad will take special care of him.

I: Ok, we are getting nowhere with this goals nor how to publicise the party and best thing to do is raise funds. I will submit a proposal in the next meeting.

All the three walk out of the meeting discussing their blog ideas on a political alliance break-up

Whereas ICON, MYCON, MYSELFCON SING

DHAK GO, INDIA GO,

GOD KNOWS WHERE ARE YOU GOING

ACCOMPANIED BY SELF SERVING RULING CLASS

MASQUEARADING MIDDLE CLASS

Effective Business Writing by Patric Forsyth

http://leadcap.org/

Patrick Forsyth runs Touchstone Training and Consultancy, which advises on marketing, management and communication skills. An established author he has written many successful business books including Successful Time Management, How to Motivate People and The PowerPoint Detox. Numerous translations of his titles have appeared around the world.

Effective Business Writing is arranged into seven chapters. The book is not all theory but contains a lot of light hearted stuff to highlight the mishaps that could be caused by faulty communication. Here are a few extracts from the book:

1.In the interest of security please ensure that your door is fully closed firmly before entering or leaving your room – sign on the inside of a hotel room doors – and a good trick if you can do it.

2.A superfluous sign on a motorway "This sign is not in use"

3.Notice in the bathroom of a hotel in Portugal "Please ensure that mat is affixed firmly to bottom before entering shower"

4.Try describing to someone over the telephone, how to, say, tie a shoelace.

5.I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork – Peter De Vries.

6.An environment agency recently announced that it had "helped to make our environment a safer place by managing a UK scheme to dispose of surplus radioactive sources in schools, museums and hospitals"

7."There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are" – Somerset Maugham.

8.A cookbook which says "To stop your eyes watering when chopping onions, put them in the freezer"

9.A cooker advertisement says "Neff Circosteam doesn't have complicated functions – just simple one touch controls, including 52 cooking programmes" (and that's simple?)

10.One pack of pills suggests that you "swallow with glass full of water". A glassful is less likely to stick in your throat.

11."All the words I use – can be found in a dictionary – it's just a matter of arranging them into the right sentences" – Somerset Maugham.

12.Some sentences can cause problems of contradictions "I never make predictions; and I never will"

13.Words are chameleons, which reflect the color of their environment.

14.What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure – Samuel Johnson.

15.I am a bear of very little brain, and long words bother me – AA Milne, Winnie the Pooh.

16.Seen in a lift "Only use the buttons provided".

17.Who decided that we should switch off a computer by clicking on "Start"?


Effective Business Writing by Patrick Forsyth is a must read for improving your writing skills.

A panel discussion on the problems of the country - satire

There are so many problems in the country and to have a `meaningful' discussion on these, the country's premier news channel `END NOW TV NEWS" decided to conduct a panel discussion on these issues. The channel's motto is "When it comes to corruption, don’t bear it, just bare it". The invited participants were "Person Aligned to Party in Power (PAPI-P)"; Ferocious Lawyer of Opposition Party (FLOOP) and me i.e. CRIB (Coward Ranting Innumerable Blogs). The interviewer was a TRP Journalist (Totally Reputed Political Journalist).

TRP-J "So Mr. PAPI-P, do you have any Idea about what is happening in the country?"
PAPI-P "Why should I get an Idea? That is why, Abhishek Bachan is being paid"
FLOOP "I cannot believe this attitude, is how you talk in a programme connecting people"
TRP-J "Gentleman, Gentleman, don't eat into our revenues. We would not be generating so much of controversy, if there were no Ad breaks. Mr. PAPI-P, do you have any concrete measures to reduce the inflation rate?"
PAPI-P "That’s easy we will replace rice with mobile bill per month; onions with broadband charges and fuel with train booking/cancellation charges and automatically the rate of inflation will come crashing down"
TRP-J "This is too much, I am asking do you have any plans to reduce the price of essential commodities?"
PAPI-P who becomes uncomfortable with the question says `Oh! I see we are not on the same wavelength….understand…wavelength" and winks at FLOOP.
FLOOP "Forget the price rise, let us talk about the scam you have done in allocation of wavelength"
PAPI-P says pointing to me "This CRIB here, has forgotten missed calls only because call rates have become cheap and this has been possible only due to the prices at which wavelength was distributed"
FLOOP "That’s ok but the country has lost a lot of money. In addition, we have also lost a lot of money organizing rallies across the country. However, on the contrary we have stopped fighting amongst ourselves not that we have decided who will lead this fight."
I added in "Mr. FLOOP, thanks to your and TRP-J attacks, I have got a lot of kick in my shadow boxing against corruption by writing blog after blog or else you know even if the earth caves in front of my house, I build a rope bridge across it and walk"
TRP-J "I should also be thankful to Mr. PAPI-P, my revenues have grown by more than 100% in the last three months"
PAPI-P "Won't you guys congratulate me for generating so many advantages?"
FLOOP "Aree Yaar, PAPI-P, you know how close we are. We run the same business, sports and married into each other's families. This is all a part of the game"
TRP-J "Yes, Mr. PAPI-P, you know how helpful we have been to you. You can't forget the RADIAition that exists in our relationship. I, you and FLOOP are just two sides of the same tissue paper. OK, what do you feel about these new breed of SSIs?"

I start getting jittery at suddenly being left out of the equation.

PAPI-P and FLOOP in unison say "These small scale industries are such a pain in the neck. We want big multinational corporations"
TRP-J `Again we have a wavelength problem, I meant to say the Self Appointed Savior of India'
PAPI-P ` He is a PILE, I mean Public Interest Litigant Evergreen. Having said that, I wish to say that my people have decided to price the wavelength at market rates but call rates will increase accordingly'
FLOOP `That’s great news. Now we can protest about how mobile has become unaffordable to the common man and how the mobile companies are making unreasonable profits"
TRP-J "We can also run innumerable programs on this subject and telecom companies would be too willing to advertise in such programs"
PAPI-P "Also TRP-J, the guys down south have agreed to give you an access in their airwaves kingdom"
TRP-J "Really, if they had done it earlier, we may have never made such a big issue of this trivial wavelength matter"
Me "OMG, What have I done to myself? I should have not written so many blogs about the wavelength allocation. The only thing that was affordable to me is also going to become costly. Why did I have to bother if some unknown exchequer lost revenue? To add to that, how much money I wasted voting on all the opinion polls of TRP-J"
TRP-J, PAPI-P and FLOOP laugh together and say "This is the gift for your shadow boxing. Get ready to be squeezed more. "
At the end of everything I am the bakra. I only hope to learn my lessons and stop doing mere shadow boxing on corruption or more better, start writing some Mills and Boons for my blogs.

My own wardrobe malfunction

http://leadcap.org/

Right from 1st standard, I was always awe-stuck with my brother making speeches on Independence Day and other competitions in schools. So when I got promoted to sixth standard (the cut-off for a student to be allowed in these competitions), I readily gave my name when it was called for. The first assignment was to speak on Independence Day about Lal Bahadur Sastriji. With active assistance of my father and the Panasonic two-in-one we had at our home, I practiced the speech over and again. Three days before the event, Dcuna Madam who was in charge of the culturals decided that all the participants will wear a dhoti and make the speech. I never took it seriously and continued preparing my speech.

The D-day came and all the “freedom fighters” were made to wear dhoti and come to the stage. First it was “Gandhiji”, next “Panditji” followed by “Patelji” and then came my turn “Sastriji”. I stood up to see nearly 900 students in front of me. I immediately realized that public speaking was more than reproducing a prepared speech. All the lessons my father gave on the etiquettes of public speaking vaporized from my mind. I was shivering, mumbling when the audience burst out laughing. My dhothi was on the floor. Obviously, the tension within my body had resulted in this scandalous wardrobe malfunction. Thankfully, I had worn inside the customary half-white pant for Saturday class and any further embarrassment was prevented. I could see my brother feeling for me but I did not want to give up speaking. Despite all the jeers, I continued speaking. To my surprise fear had evaporated and I was able to speak freely. Though I did not win any prize, I did get a special mention from the principal for courageously standing on to speak despite the mishap.

Thankfully, there were no moral police around those days or else a campaign would have been started against me for an intentional wardrobe malfunction, that too in a boy’s school.

How News Channels would have reported history (Part I) - A Satire

Continued from Part II

We start with a play review (remember those days there were no films)

This week we have a boring play which is just run of the mill stuff with an unimaginable, impracticable and hackneyed storyline laced with a lot of melodrama and sleaze. This is the story of a guy from a royal family who goes on an hunt, meets a girl, love at first sight, secret marriage, departs back home, leaves behind the girl with a ring and a kid, girl lost in thoughts, cursed by an angry sadhu, memory loss for hero, girl loses ring, hero fails to recognise girl when she turns up at his place and later seeing the ring in a fish stomach remembers everything and they live happily thereafter.

Being very generous, I give this play "one star out of five".

Infact, for the past 3 days we conducted an opinion poll and gave people two options, option a, they wont remember this play six months from now and option b, they will remember this play for their lifetimes. We have an astonishing 100% result for option (A). Here is the ticker. The result has a slight dip and now it is 50%, no, 33% for option A, it is 25% for A, 20% for A, sorry, that’s all we have time today…." By the time the ticker is taken of air, it is 1% for option A.


By the by the play we are talking about is Kalidasa's "Shakuntala" and since Kalidasa did not believe in PR exercise, his play had to get this review.


A controversial but good at public relations Roman Emperor commits suicide.

Anchor with white dyed hairs which give him a mature soberly yells out the beginning "This is the saddest day of my life. The dearest Emperor of Rome has committed suicide unable to bear rebellion. He was a great constructor, reformer in his own right, sports lover in fact participated in an Olympic game, lover of fine arts and always had a kind heart for us press guys. We are here to discuss the possible fall out of his death. In our panel are some distinguished persons, Mr. Success Obsessed Bull (SOB); Publically Important and Manipulating Person and Socialite-I (PIMaPaS) and Corn-y Journalist (CJ), lets start with you Mr.PIMaPaS, tell us about the emperor".

PIMaPaS "Oh, yeah, he appreciated all the delicate things in life. He loved family a lot which can be seen from the fact that he married thrice. Also he was in constant touch with me err. for organizing performances in the numerous theatres, dance stages he had built. The parties he threw were fabulous and I grew as a person thanks to the contacts developed in his parties. Truly, it is a great loss to Roman Culture, families values and fine hearts"

Anchor `Now we go in for a short break and will be back. All the Ads in this break reflect the great values the emperor stood for"

In the Ad break, Ads relating to Resorts, Liquor companies, condoms, villas are played.

Back from the break, the Anchor with a teary eye" Welcome back after the break, now Mr. SoB will share his memories of the Emperor"

SoB-I `Yes, he was the darling of the markets. Each of his actions contributed to improving private wealth. Just look at the number of constructions for fine arts, athletics, etc. All these led to huge value for the construction industry and people who traded in their shares. One more thing, the tax break he gave for food imports benefited the traders a lot because he never insisted that they be passed on to the citizens'

Anchor `Ok, now Mr. CJ you tell us your experience, what sort of great ruler he was?"

CJ `You can identify his integrity by the fact that he executed his stepbrother, mother and first wife to save his seat………oops… I mean to uphold the law of the land. He was so much worried about law and order that he reduced the bail amount and fines. He wanted to discover the origin of Nile. However there are some unsubstantiated allegations that he was fiddling with his piano when the city was burning. Let me tell you it was only a lyre and not a piano. There was this great concert organised by the King and fireworks were arranged around the city and some of them went wrong. Only three of the fourteen districts were burnt to ashes. The Emperor after the concert organised relief for the citizens. As a remembrance of the dead, the Emperor built a new palace for himself in an area cleared by the fire. So as you can see he was above slur and beyond the understanding of common man"

Anchor `Ok, the general consensus is that he was a great human being and able administrator, we all mourn his death"

In case you have still not guessed who the Emperor is, It is Nero I. Nero focused much on diplomacy, trade and increasing the cultural capital of the empire. Despite his antics during the great Roman fire, some historians of that time have painted him in favorable light highlighting the fact that he maintained good relations with the press of those days. Is somebody in a big corruption mess, listening, if only you had done your PR, who knows?

Thuglaq shifts capital from Delhi to Devagiri

Thuglaq is immortalized for his misrule. It is surprising that some historians of that time have labeled him as a wise king. Obviously, Thugulaq knew a thing or two about PR. Here is a panel discussion on Thuqlaq move to shift the capital from Delhi to Devagiri. In the panel are SOB XVI, PIaMPaS XVII and Common Man (CM) discussing the shifting of the capital by Emperor Thugulaq (ET) with a prominent woman journalist who just imposes herself on a discussion and never allows any dissent.

Anchor : We are here to discuss the pathbreaking move of ET to shift the Capital from Delhi to Devagiri, first you Mr SoB, tell us how this move will be good for the country"

SOB XVI : He is best emperor for construction since Nero. Just imagine the number of buildings, roads and other infrastructure that will be built in the new capital. A good Government should spend like this and not on subsidies for the poor guys who anyway will die hungry. In addition, ET has ordered transportation of men, wonen and capital, this is again good news for shares of logistics companies. I put a strong buy on construction, logistics shares and a double thumbs up for the Government"

CM tries to talk, only to be cut by the Anchor "We will come back after a break and you can say whatever you want in whatever time we allow"

In the break, advertisements of construction companies, mineral water manufacturers, logistics companies are played. The programme time of 30 minutes is consumed 18 minutes by Ads.

Anchor "Ok, Mr PIaMPaS XVII, tell us how this capital shift will promote your national building activities?

PIaMPaS "I am very grateful to ET. There will be a party before shifting, en route and after shifting. Many foreign dignatories, rich businessmen will come and my business errr…. cultural exchange will increase and that is a good news for socialites like me"

CM again tries to talk but is again interrupted by the Anchor "I know you have been patiently waiting but Mr. SOB XVI has something important to say about a proposed currency change, let us listen to him. (holds CM shoulder) and says "promise you will get your time" in a very deep passionate voice.

SOB XVI " Yeah, ET has plans to change the currency metal from gold to brass or copper. This will increase the gold reserves and create new opportunities for minting by private parties"

CM snatches the mike and screams "that would mean forged currency". SOB XVI winks at him but the camera intentionally avoids this wink. CM is still talking but his mike is switched off.

Meanwhile, Anchor "Mr CM you have had your say, I guess we have to end it here, at the end of the day, it is a great move by the ET, there will always be dissenting voices but the wheels of progress have to move, Good Night" and the music rolls, the anchor gets into a conversation with PIaMPaS.



To be continued in some randomly numbered part.