Dear Mr.Schumi,
It has been a real long time since I last wrote to you (Hell ! I've never written to you before!!)..But this is at a juncture when i couldnt refrain from making it public....I had to take this opportunity to commend you on your great caliber behind the wheels....What if all you did was manage to stall your car in the middle of an already narrow track...It takes a lot of courage to do such an atrocious act, to assume that the billion odd fans watching you were fools, and still go ahead and declare that it was an "technical snag"...
I condemn all those race stewards who called you guilty at the end of a long discussion behind closed doors...Am sure this is a part of their long term conspiracy to bring you down...Worry not...The mean ones can not rule...
I also appreciate the support that your team has given you through time...making sure that Alonso was behind you when you stalled and hadnot passed ahead by a slight...What if that had happened...and your play would have not achieved its rightful purpose...? One should always applaud the team that is so lured by you and your skills that it promises loyalty for good...I recollect a few years back when we were blessed with a dramatic finish, two ferraris finishing a typical race-like finish...what if the one reigning had to back off...God shall prevail forever right....
But I sometimes wonder if I am deceived...in believing that you are the best f1 driver till date...For this childish behaviour was not what one would expect of a pro...Are we going back in time by any lame mistake...? You know what you could have done to make me stop thinking so...? You could have atleast collided against one of those barricades in Monaco...A small crash...nothing that the Expert ferrari crew cannot fix....And nothing that would have taken you to a doc...
Now with years of driving, you know what I mean by a light crash right...? Hmm..Its not one of those that you have had in the past, every time you realised that the guy overtaking you might land up finishing before you..No..those were real bad...I mean one of those small ones...That would have surely made a better story to tell , than stalling the car there at the edge of the track; like an expert parking on a busy NY road craving for space....That didnot show age and expertise in the act sir...
I remember all those nerve wracking discussion I have had with friends about you being the best f1 driver till date...About you being the God of the sport...Has God been replaced by younger blood now..?? Has this scared him off his seat...??Is that why he is acting this irrational..??
Can you mail me back these answers..??
All the best for a brilliant acting career ahead...
Yours faithfully,
A disappointed F1 fan...
PS:Can you please pass this mail over to Micheal Schumacher, the seven times world champion, if you find him around..??
02 June 2006
18 May 2006
NRIs...the Non Reserved Indians
It has been close to seven weeks, as I write this post.. a few of them havenot done what they would normally be doing...another few have done what they would normally not be doing....a few of them have been treated like how they would never have been treated otherwise....One died for no mistake on his part....
Many wonder if all this commotion has anything to do with a recent movie, well sub titled, "A Generation Awakes"..
But the recent agitation that is rocking the country, about the reservation for OBC in educational institutions, is something not many have been able to ignore. How could you, with gory pictures of young doctors being treated like some miscreants, storming the media day in and out.
The acceptance or not of such a pact lies in our basics, our beliefs, the principles that have been fed to us till date.. For why else would an equally large number of students all over the country take to streets, in support of this policy. Why else would friends for years differentiate themselves only coz they were from the 'quota'..?
I support reservation..If the year was 1950 and the lower income groups in India were mistreated by the so called upper classes, made to beg for food, retort to all gruesome means to feed their crying children, be treated close to the animals that gave them milk each morning. Agreed there have been times when the forward caste has not acted that 'forward' afterall; not even human infact...but werent these reasons considered when the first amendment was put in, to include reservation in the Indian society..? That was when it was decided that this ill treatment had to stop, that the people who have been bearing the wrath for years for no fault of theirs had to be given what was rightfully theirs.
And that's what exactly happened right..? They had their go at schools..Reserved seats for children ensured that more of them got their basic education....Reservation in high schools made sure that more were motivated to get a decent level of schooling...seats meant for them in colleges assured them through a professional course too...reservations in the various government sector organisations sealed their position in offices too....
So there is a group, that is ill treated and tortured, till the people around them realise that it is time they stop treating them that way...and give them all ways of making null the gap that exists between the lower and the upper ones...Now that the gap is anulled, what more..?
I find it logical to drop the conveniences once they have made sure that all differences are lost...then why carry it throughout your life...? why trickle it down to your grand child, just because your great grand father was ill treated..?
It has to be an honest decision on each one's part, I believe...
What results of the current system, that is being inflicted by oneself, is a sense of obvious division...a sense of branding...Even in the midst of all this anti-reservation campainging, I am against all those who make generalisations; that those who have enjoyed the benefits of the reservation have only misused it; that ones in through this have only managed to scrape through classes, bringing the standard of education down and remain unplaced and all the likes...I totally oppose anybody who chooses to say this, having ignored all those from the general quotas who fail to perform and the ones from these groups who have gone out and made a mark for themselves in this world...
If there is any reason why there has been any ill treatment meted out to my reserved friends around, it is because of the branding with which they enter....so why not eliminate that from the start itself...
I heard a very touching story of a fellow with the AIIMS....a quota student, son of a cobbler father, he slogged his way through college,what with the branding and all...today a proud father of a son waiting for admissions to colleges, he gave up his son's "legal right" to reservation, claiming that he could afford a normal education to his son, something his father could not do to him....
At the end of all this....there are a million deserving students who still donot get the advantage of the scheme...For competition is imminent at all levels...and those economically backward must be losing out here too...
Dr Rela, a famous surgeon in London, roots in India, a starter medical degree from Stanley, Madras, was a "quota student"...During his recent visit to India, he spoke of his college days when he used to enjoy the comfort of a car ride to and from college...of all facilities at home that would not befit the so called "backward"....He stands totally against reservation based on castes...
I salute all those who have given up their seeming rights to reservation...to live on merit...am not saying that the ones on the other side are any less meritious...but if they are...then why the difference....
Why are we fighting against a common body....dividing ourselves in the process....?
Isn't it time we realised that reservations have to be given to those economically challenged kids, forced to work at a tender age to bring back a decent meal a day...?Its time to support those children forced to discontinue schooling midway, to feed an ailing father or a dying mother....It is these little bloods that need reservation, a motivation to get them standing strong on their feet....
Its time we started using our head to think..and let the heart do only the pumping....
PS:The thoughts expressed here are for reason meant to hurt the sentiments of any particular sect of the society...At the end of the day...we all bleed...we all die...and we all are Indians to begin with...
Many wonder if all this commotion has anything to do with a recent movie, well sub titled, "A Generation Awakes"..
But the recent agitation that is rocking the country, about the reservation for OBC in educational institutions, is something not many have been able to ignore. How could you, with gory pictures of young doctors being treated like some miscreants, storming the media day in and out.
The acceptance or not of such a pact lies in our basics, our beliefs, the principles that have been fed to us till date.. For why else would an equally large number of students all over the country take to streets, in support of this policy. Why else would friends for years differentiate themselves only coz they were from the 'quota'..?
I support reservation..If the year was 1950 and the lower income groups in India were mistreated by the so called upper classes, made to beg for food, retort to all gruesome means to feed their crying children, be treated close to the animals that gave them milk each morning. Agreed there have been times when the forward caste has not acted that 'forward' afterall; not even human infact...but werent these reasons considered when the first amendment was put in, to include reservation in the Indian society..? That was when it was decided that this ill treatment had to stop, that the people who have been bearing the wrath for years for no fault of theirs had to be given what was rightfully theirs.
And that's what exactly happened right..? They had their go at schools..Reserved seats for children ensured that more of them got their basic education....Reservation in high schools made sure that more were motivated to get a decent level of schooling...seats meant for them in colleges assured them through a professional course too...reservations in the various government sector organisations sealed their position in offices too....
So there is a group, that is ill treated and tortured, till the people around them realise that it is time they stop treating them that way...and give them all ways of making null the gap that exists between the lower and the upper ones...Now that the gap is anulled, what more..?
I find it logical to drop the conveniences once they have made sure that all differences are lost...then why carry it throughout your life...? why trickle it down to your grand child, just because your great grand father was ill treated..?
It has to be an honest decision on each one's part, I believe...
What results of the current system, that is being inflicted by oneself, is a sense of obvious division...a sense of branding...Even in the midst of all this anti-reservation campainging, I am against all those who make generalisations; that those who have enjoyed the benefits of the reservation have only misused it; that ones in through this have only managed to scrape through classes, bringing the standard of education down and remain unplaced and all the likes...I totally oppose anybody who chooses to say this, having ignored all those from the general quotas who fail to perform and the ones from these groups who have gone out and made a mark for themselves in this world...
If there is any reason why there has been any ill treatment meted out to my reserved friends around, it is because of the branding with which they enter....so why not eliminate that from the start itself...
I heard a very touching story of a fellow with the AIIMS....a quota student, son of a cobbler father, he slogged his way through college,what with the branding and all...today a proud father of a son waiting for admissions to colleges, he gave up his son's "legal right" to reservation, claiming that he could afford a normal education to his son, something his father could not do to him....
At the end of all this....there are a million deserving students who still donot get the advantage of the scheme...For competition is imminent at all levels...and those economically backward must be losing out here too...
Dr Rela, a famous surgeon in London, roots in India, a starter medical degree from Stanley, Madras, was a "quota student"...During his recent visit to India, he spoke of his college days when he used to enjoy the comfort of a car ride to and from college...of all facilities at home that would not befit the so called "backward"....He stands totally against reservation based on castes...
I salute all those who have given up their seeming rights to reservation...to live on merit...am not saying that the ones on the other side are any less meritious...but if they are...then why the difference....
Why are we fighting against a common body....dividing ourselves in the process....?
Isn't it time we realised that reservations have to be given to those economically challenged kids, forced to work at a tender age to bring back a decent meal a day...?Its time to support those children forced to discontinue schooling midway, to feed an ailing father or a dying mother....It is these little bloods that need reservation, a motivation to get them standing strong on their feet....
Its time we started using our head to think..and let the heart do only the pumping....
PS:The thoughts expressed here are for reason meant to hurt the sentiments of any particular sect of the society...At the end of the day...we all bleed...we all die...and we all are Indians to begin with...
08 May 2006
And then down the line.....
It was one of those days, when you weren't sure whether you had no work; or there was so much that you dint know where to push start...I, the Engineer v2.5, with the new IT plug-in that totally terminates any older versions of Civil vN from the system, sat staring unblinkingly at another...And the required spark struck...
Oh no..Dont expect me to have run around my cubicle, mouthing Eureka! and any of the likes..Coz I did nothing then your mother would be proud of you for....It had been around eight long months in this source of trauma...(Umm..wait a minute...that was the count two months back though)..And I had totally lost count of time or space or any such event....
So my mission for the day was to evaluate my current position in the company....uhh..!! With the company being a real show stopper, delivering best-in-class-IT-solutions, with the latest Q4 result declaring a huge 36500 new employees added....Too far fledged..?? True...So I narrowed down to the building I worked in....
To start off with, there's AR..the Maal they call him...Been in my module from day 1 in the project, unlike me, the vagabond, who peeked in at every other one and settled for this in the end....He was the one I was to turn to in case of any of those queries, which If raised to another level would raise a crossed brow and get them thinking about my credentials in the same...So there's him...
Then there's one step higher...This the God of IT...thanks to the real One being very modest about his state...We shall henceforth call him just that...He has an opinion about every other thing in the world...ranging from the tamilians dying for 'their' superstar..to how stupid j.k.rowling was to sell her books to a movie man...to why saurav would make a great f1 driver...He had all of it...and they would be one of those arguments put in...where you gotta just shut up and listen, coz you're smart enough to not waste your energy fighting a scare crow....And call him similar to the Lord'O Games and your sure to run a long beating....
Up that level is the one they called the Leader of the team...Or should I include the back up to the leader first....A totally non committed leader, who ensures the sweet talking continues till you leave the room and walk down the stairs content with your fight, only to realise when at the basement, that you were tricked into getting a 2 on 5....Now..what can you say about those..Just quietly count them in...
Then, as I said is the leader...they come and they go...but forever thou shalt be run around by them...with nothing much that you can do...Bear while thou canst..!
Then there's the Offshore module lead..What if your module is a mere threesome down here...you still gotta go up and get a sign off for every other line of code you intend purifying....What if its the God again...! you got no where to run..no where to hide...for the reaches of God are far fetched for good...!
There has to be his onsite counterpart...All of them have it...So there's one more to the list...Easy talking one who makes sure he puts on one of those best tones of speech, even when setting your deadline of work to tomo EOD...they must have got special tranings for all that....
Up the hierarchy, there is the PM...It comes with the abbrev i guess....but this one goes off my head too...visits us once a blue moon...exactly when you think that you are someone in this company...makes sure you know your a piece of scum living off the generosity that the company wants to keep losers like you...And if you did nothing about your state of affairs in the next few dyas, doom's day could not be avoided... All this with a neat smile on his face by the way...
His boss is the manager of the account...Oh no..! he has nothing to do with giving you the salary or maintaining the ledgers...yet..thats his deisgnation....Is called for all birthday parties..its taken an honour to receive one of those laminated certificates from him...Is always remembered when authority is called in to threaten you into doing your work....
Hmmm...At the end of it all..there's the client....He is always right...He is the God of all Gods...at the end of the day, it is to keep him happy that you slog from 11 to 3...listen to all the nonsenses for which your collegemates would have seen their death bed for a mere thought of utterance...and still put on one of you cheap smiles and go back to work...
There you have it...Picture me at the grass roots and picture the drive I have to get out and Do it..!!
Oh no..Dont expect me to have run around my cubicle, mouthing Eureka! and any of the likes..Coz I did nothing then your mother would be proud of you for....It had been around eight long months in this source of trauma...(Umm..wait a minute...that was the count two months back though)..And I had totally lost count of time or space or any such event....
So my mission for the day was to evaluate my current position in the company....uhh..!! With the company being a real show stopper, delivering best-in-class-IT-solutions, with the latest Q4 result declaring a huge 36500 new employees added....Too far fledged..?? True...So I narrowed down to the building I worked in....
To start off with, there's AR..the Maal they call him...Been in my module from day 1 in the project, unlike me, the vagabond, who peeked in at every other one and settled for this in the end....He was the one I was to turn to in case of any of those queries, which If raised to another level would raise a crossed brow and get them thinking about my credentials in the same...So there's him...
Then there's one step higher...This the God of IT...thanks to the real One being very modest about his state...We shall henceforth call him just that...He has an opinion about every other thing in the world...ranging from the tamilians dying for 'their' superstar..to how stupid j.k.rowling was to sell her books to a movie man...to why saurav would make a great f1 driver...He had all of it...and they would be one of those arguments put in...where you gotta just shut up and listen, coz you're smart enough to not waste your energy fighting a scare crow....And call him similar to the Lord'O Games and your sure to run a long beating....
Up that level is the one they called the Leader of the team...Or should I include the back up to the leader first....A totally non committed leader, who ensures the sweet talking continues till you leave the room and walk down the stairs content with your fight, only to realise when at the basement, that you were tricked into getting a 2 on 5....Now..what can you say about those..Just quietly count them in...
Then, as I said is the leader...they come and they go...but forever thou shalt be run around by them...with nothing much that you can do...Bear while thou canst..!
Then there's the Offshore module lead..What if your module is a mere threesome down here...you still gotta go up and get a sign off for every other line of code you intend purifying....What if its the God again...! you got no where to run..no where to hide...for the reaches of God are far fetched for good...!
There has to be his onsite counterpart...All of them have it...So there's one more to the list...Easy talking one who makes sure he puts on one of those best tones of speech, even when setting your deadline of work to tomo EOD...they must have got special tranings for all that....
Up the hierarchy, there is the PM...It comes with the abbrev i guess....but this one goes off my head too...visits us once a blue moon...exactly when you think that you are someone in this company...makes sure you know your a piece of scum living off the generosity that the company wants to keep losers like you...And if you did nothing about your state of affairs in the next few dyas, doom's day could not be avoided... All this with a neat smile on his face by the way...
His boss is the manager of the account...Oh no..! he has nothing to do with giving you the salary or maintaining the ledgers...yet..thats his deisgnation....Is called for all birthday parties..its taken an honour to receive one of those laminated certificates from him...Is always remembered when authority is called in to threaten you into doing your work....
Hmmm...At the end of it all..there's the client....He is always right...He is the God of all Gods...at the end of the day, it is to keep him happy that you slog from 11 to 3...listen to all the nonsenses for which your collegemates would have seen their death bed for a mere thought of utterance...and still put on one of you cheap smiles and go back to work...
There you have it...Picture me at the grass roots and picture the drive I have to get out and Do it..!!
12 April 2006
To teach...and To guide....
I was a loner then...Had joined this group afresh and the new crowd left me staring at nothing when they were engrossed in some heated discussion..Things were not going very smooth...the usual hitch with blending into a new place...And ever wondered why they wouldnt realise that you are new and need help..?
True..they never did..and always made sure that they cracked the silliest jokes and pulled the dirtiest humour on you....little did they realise that their hopes of letting you gel where actually behaving in the contrary fashion....
It was in one such desperate moment that i found my Teacher...now dont get the wrong impression of a middle aged lady, sqaure rimmed glasses on and ordering you around...she was my mentor...and somehow knew that i was ill at ease in the new area...She, thus, made sure that i never had to leave my coccoon...the comforting hand was always around..and it made sure that the hurt of the world never caught me hard...I dont remember once that there was a word of anger from that being...Always treated me like a kid...and acted the caring mama...If only all were like her..!!
Am a grown up now...younger ones have arrived...I've learnt to live in this place with a kind of neutrality that will get me through the day....and my mentor has left me...Left to tutor the newer ones...protect them with the warm light she'd shed on my once...
I look ahead at the road that is paved for me...its again one with niceties at every corner...With all the wrongs quietly muffled....at a juncture like today I pause...And i look at the scene..from a distance....a quiet admirer...I think...if i was missing anything from then...Yes I do...But adolescence has to catch up eventually...and it did...
True..they never did..and always made sure that they cracked the silliest jokes and pulled the dirtiest humour on you....little did they realise that their hopes of letting you gel where actually behaving in the contrary fashion....
It was in one such desperate moment that i found my Teacher...now dont get the wrong impression of a middle aged lady, sqaure rimmed glasses on and ordering you around...she was my mentor...and somehow knew that i was ill at ease in the new area...She, thus, made sure that i never had to leave my coccoon...the comforting hand was always around..and it made sure that the hurt of the world never caught me hard...I dont remember once that there was a word of anger from that being...Always treated me like a kid...and acted the caring mama...If only all were like her..!!Am a grown up now...younger ones have arrived...I've learnt to live in this place with a kind of neutrality that will get me through the day....and my mentor has left me...Left to tutor the newer ones...protect them with the warm light she'd shed on my once...
I look ahead at the road that is paved for me...its again one with niceties at every corner...With all the wrongs quietly muffled....at a juncture like today I pause...And i look at the scene..from a distance....a quiet admirer...I think...if i was missing anything from then...Yes I do...But adolescence has to catch up eventually...and it did...
21 March 2006
To thine own self be true.!
Yet here, Laertes! Aboard, aboard for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay'd for.
There ... my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg’d comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel but, being in,
Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgement.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!
-- William Shakespeare
Heard this piece of advice first in school..And then it was a mere documentation that you had to study to get those much wanted grades...It hadnt been that age when all this would have made real sense..
But recently when a friend FYIed this passage, with a "remember?" attached to it, i realised what an art this one was...
I go back to remembering when exactly this exchange took place..I can picture that scene in the dock yard...father standing amidst his cricle of friends and discussing issues...the son, out on his big voyage, cluttered by his excited friends...and then, its time to leave....reality bites the concerned father...and in that overflow...speaks his heart out....
Wow.!! Like i said a piece of art...Each line leaves me thinking...Years down, when i read it today, it maintains its relevance...A thought that every parent would want to pass on to their little ones, as they go out every day, on a journey called life...
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
Very true...For it is as much a mad act to let go of tried and trustworthy friends, as tough it is to find them.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Sure...the world of today seems to lack listeners but is overflowing with ones with ideas to gush out at unwanted places....
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
Another wise advice from a parent...A must remember for the young bloods of today...
And the prize winner....
To thine own self be true.!
That man is someone to have come up with such a paternal advice...at consider the fact that he was in his 20s when he wrote the whole play up...He was a miracle for sure....
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