Dissimilarities in similarities

France and India… You will think that I have gone nuts to even have thought of comparing the two countries. One a socialist democratic and other being capitalist democratic, one already developed and the other still struggling to be counted in ‘Developing countries’, one totally machine dependent where experiments are done to reduce human intervention to the minimum and other trying to increase the human involvement to give employment to the over populated population and you can put it humorously one having most human touch with least human intervention and other having least human touch with most human intervention.


But finally humans are humans and some of the human traits just don’t follow the boundaries. In a month long stay I saw few things and thought they are so different although being so similar and thought of jotting them down.

1. Morning rush : Morning metros and trams can easily make you forget that if you are in Mumbai or Lyon. Train coming at every 5 minutes, group of people surging every second and filling the platform by the time next train arrives, no place to sit and sometimes stand even in train. I see people running for trains here also, entering the train even when the buzzer is buzzing to tell them to wait for next train as they are just missing this one. But even in those huge rush you will hear words like ‘Pardon’ , ‘Desolee’ , ‘ Excuse moi’. These words immediately bring my mind back to Lyon incase it wanders to Mumbai. I never get to hear the hindi/english counterparts of these French courtesy words in Indian trains. Its actually true when you have a population of more then a billion then you cannot expect people not to strike each other and to say sorry each time they hit another human body.

2. Kids : Its always soothing to see a kid running, playing, falling, retrying the same thing and refalling the similar way it fall in the last try. Kids are those who have not yet been able to recognize the difference between skin color, who still don’t understand that why it is wrong to jump off the bed, who gets hurt but doesn’t think twice before repeating the same thing. Kids’ innocence never follows boundaries, skin color, religion, region anything. I always find it interesting to see all these characteristics of a kid as it make me realize that there is still some innocence left in this cruel world but this satisfaction of mine is very short lived as next very moment I see somebody murdering this innocence, when I see a kid begging on the road, kid cleaning the table and getting thrashed for not cleaning it properly The innocence in their eyes die that very moment when for a penny they clean somebody’s car windowpane and see through the same window pane a mother pampering her kid with a chocolate. It is not only poverty that is culprit, even a kid of a normal family sometimes faces problem, although different from above, the problem of alone childhood as his parents are busy earning bread for him. Till now(cant guarantee future though) I haven’t seen any of this problem here. Govt provides a extra day off from work if you have kid. Sundays are always the family day with all the shops closed, providing the family to bond together. I wish something similar to happen but even my wish knows that if not century then it is decades away from becoming a reality.

3. Beggars : This is the one of the most interesting (dis)similarity I have come across in France. Its totally untrue to say that there are no beggars here and like those in India, they ask for money but unlike those in India they ask for cigarette if not money. Like those in India they ask for something to eat but unlike those in India they speak English (mind you English is so uncommon here that if I hear somebody speaking English then my head turns). Like those in India they sometimes beg with there kids but unlike those in India they are properly dressed. Like those in India they play music but unlike those in India they say ‘Merci & Bonsoir’ when you don’t give anything.

4. Pets : Ah pets, or I should precisely say dogs, are my weak point. I just hope one day even I will have a dog whom I will name Bruno. I think love for a dog is not different, neither in India nor in France and I find quiet a number of people (I wont talk in terms of percentage coz then India will fall far behind) having a dog as a pet but the dogs in both the places are so different. In my first visit I kept on wondering that why a pet owner doesn’t put dog strap around the neck, and in the absence of the strap how come the dog behaves perfectly, following the owner (I hate to use this word as human or a dog, both are just two beings. Today the belt is our hand, you never when it becomes vice versa). Dogs are so well behaved, sometimes I feel they are better behaved then me even. Back in India I can never find this behavior, they might not bite but they will surely bark on the stranger, a guest or any unknown person in that matter. I still wonder is it the food, climate or the upbringing that makes our dogs so different then here’s. If possible I will do the experiment of bring a puppy from India and raising it here, at least that will strike off one of the reasons specified above.

I know with time I will come across more points and will keep on adding to my list till the point my eyes and mind become used to of this place and cease to see or note the dissimilarities in these similar situations.

Exploring Identity....

Identity - a word, a question, an answer, a factor, a debate or a crisis.

Identity can take so many forms in our single span of life. Identity is one word that differentiates me from thousands of Hariyanaites, lakhs of different Sikhs, millions of different Indians, billions of different human beings. When put across table it takes the form of debate, when expressed to somebody it takes the form of answer, when conveyed to somebody it takes the form of factor and when thought about it in the subconscious mind it takes the form of crisis.

When I was in Delhi, my identity was by my birth religion, then I shifted to Mumbai and my identity shifted and it became by birth region and now when I am in France I am known by my birth country. How come my shifting to different places keeps on shifting my identity? Out of all these questions, the million dollar (or I should start saying million euro) question is ‘What is identity’

The virtual identity starts forming when the baby is in the womb of mother and real identity of the kid starts forming the moment it comes out of the womb. The baby born to the queen would always be a prince or a princess. The birth place, religion, caste, surname, date, time of birth etc forms the basic foundation of the identity and later on as the kid starts growing then his behavior, his choices start taking shape which further defines the identity. During the growing year the kid starts to have his own likings and dislikings, his own thought process and the implementation of these thoughts start defining the character of the kid who now has capability of listening and judging.

So he starts shaping his identity by accidental or unaccidental exposure to his/her surrounding. Identity formation in earlier years of growth is undeliberate attempt and in later years takes a form of deliberate effort. In years, when our conscious starts forming, we start idealizing few figures and this idealization makes us change our thoughts, our deeds, our actions and our reactions to other people’s action.

Identity - As small this word is, as big its meaning is and bigger is the list of ingredients that form this word. We all, at some point of time in our lives, have always searched the answer to one basic question – Who am I? This soul searching exercise, no matter how long it takes, always changes the direction of life. Recently I was seeing one serial in which a person, who used to be a real estate agent in US, just left everything one day and became a coin searcher. He said mid-life-crisis was the reason of this change. I always feel that in middle of life, when we start feeling voidness, we start searching the reason of existence of ouselves as an identity and this is termed as the more commercialized term mid-life-crisis. This real-estate person was one example but there are lot many where soul searching drove people to explore all-together different aspects of life. Loneliness(and hope not the mid-life-crisis  ) was one factor that aligned me to this direction and I am still not sure that where am I on this road but I hope that one day would be bright sunny day, unblocking all ways and that day I will know answers to all my questions.

Why is it so difficult to be ordinary?

Recent comment by one of my friend upsetted me for one full day. You must be thinking that the comment must had been real bad, but naa it was just a passing statement ‘You girls are all same’. I retaliated to this statement by not talking to him for some time but now when I have forgiven the sinner, by restarting the conversation, I thought what the big deal about it was. Is it really that bad to be counted as one of the millions of girls or I should say is it really bad to be counted as ordinary. I have met so many people in last couple of years and sometimes to increase my listening power I make people speak about themselves and just hear them, their thoughts about themselves, as per my experience if you give one chance to people to talk about themselves, 90% of them will try to tell the quality that they poses that is different from others. Is this single quality help us stand out the crowd or the just imagination of standing out the crowd make us develop this habit. I remember in my childhood I used to wear watch in my right hand and when all others wore it in left, why?, just to show I am different. Although I stopped wearing watch in right side, not because I stopped thinking myself different but because it was far more comfortable to have it in left rather then on the right side, but I still want to do something that makes me different. Why is the human mind wants to prove infact the question should be, what is it that human mind wants to prove to others. Its ironical that its more painful to see yourself being able to sustain in day-to-day life like an ordinary person and being able to feed your family and kids like an ordinary person does. Sometimes I think that either I should be on the top or should be out of this rat race. I think it is easier and satisfying to fight to be different then being ordinary. In this short span of our lives we fight to be different, to do something ‘alag’ but forget the moments that we miss in between. This fight is unending; I wanted to work in ‘different’ city so landed in Mumbai, once I am here then I am an ‘ordinary’ Mumbaite, to get rid of this ordinary tag I fight to purchase a house and once I am a proud owner of a house in a costly city like Mumbai, then I realize that I have entered the category of ‘ordinary house owner’ in Mumbai and so I fight to purchase a car and the fight continues. I think its Ambani-level or SRK-level we are fighting for and only one or two in millions make it to this level so rest 999998 people land in category called ordinary. Is it really that bad to be in this category? I still don’t have a ‘satisfying’ answer to this question but today as I close another yearly chapter and say bye-bye to 2009, I hope that 2010 will bring new answers to ever increasing and unending hunger of human mind.

Whats all this ho halla about??

So now we have another big celebrity being engulfed in the flames of sex and scandals. Tiger Woods, whose couple of extra marital affairs have surfaced recently, had been center of all media attention, putting his professional as well as personal life in daamadol situation. So that means whatever he earned from his sports for so many years has gone down the drain. Now even a kid with 0% knowledge of golf knows 100% about Tiger Woods, might not be about his golf skills but about his number of affairs and all those minute details. Mr Woods is not the first celebrity to go through this, we have a long list. But the most important thing to be thought about in all this is, what is this hoo halla about. Is it because it involves the richest sportsman of the world, or is it because that affair number is too high to add spices to it, or is it because it involves love, sex and betrayal. Whatever it may be but one thing is quiet sure, the main culprit is sex, the three letter word that can bring a high-up to the lowest level. But why??? Why is this word such a taboo. Why is that even refer of this word outside your marriage can shatter your whole family. Quiet a sensitive topic to discuss……phew. But if we think little deep into the problem instead of its consequences we might something more important, something more reasonable to this problem, if I can call it the same.
Recently I was reading in a newspaper where a judge of a Supreme court said that we all know that prostitution is the oldest surviving profession and the one which we are not able to curb, then why to fight against it, why not legalize it. Now you must be thinking that from where the hell prostitution came into picture in between the spicy Tiger Woods story. Once thought deeply we will realize that these things are all related to one thing and that is sex. We all human beings, animals, bacteria, mammals everybody who have life have requirements like we eat because the body needs food, we drink because body needs water, similarily we have sex because body needs it. Different bodies have diff requirements for everything including physical intercourse. But I think we haven’t reached the phase where we take sex as one of the body requirement, its still one thing that should be hidden from outer world, should only be discussed in closed doors, if discussed/experimented outside your home’s bedroom can lead to rocky relationships. Tiger is one of the live example who is sacrifised because of this thought process, but I think that its high time that we open our windows and change our view point towards this. We need to see it with different angle. I am not in favour of betrayal but you betray only when you know the other person is not going to see sex the way you see it. If we change the overall viewpoint we might have better relationships, lesser rapes, less people who get forcefully involved in flesh trade. Rampant nature of anything is bad including eating, drinking or sex and we need rules everywhere. Better rules can help society to have lesser divorces, STDs etc. The rules that were made earlier were applicable for those times. Everything is undergoing change so should our thought process and the rules of society to make it a better and more peaceful place to live in.

God of Big Things.

Bombay is a big city, covering area of 600 square kilometer and having a population of more then 19 million people. It is second largest city in world and I think the only city in India with a blend of flavors from all over India. Economically it generates 5% of India’s GDP. What do all these big figures mean to me. All these big figures mean a lot infact. It means after you come to this city you realize that a sq feet of area means so much, money and time are two most important things in life, being a girl doesn’t mean sitting at home, decision of having second kid depends on pay package, life is not about waiting for opportunities to happen but to make them happen and so many things. You get stuck by Mumbai virus the moment you step on this soil. High rises, slums, footpaths, 5 stars, red light areas, bars, pubs anything you ask for (or not ask for) and you have it. It doesn’t mean that none other big cities provide this but Bombay obviously has an undisputed edge over all other metros.
What drives mumbaites, how they have so much of energy to take a local in morning where even breathing is an effort and then come back on same by evening, how they manage to come up from a breakup so soon and start afresh next very day, how they make there living by selling a 2 buck comb in locals for years and continue doing it for rest of their life. What is the driving nerve of this place that we call as Mumbai. It is the God of all small and big things – Dreams. This is a place that sells dreams to all small, medium or big people. It gives new dreams to the eyes, providing all the opportunities for the wings to expand that make you can fly till whatever height or fall till whatever depth. Such a variety of public you can find here, from beggars to business owners, from auto driver to merc owner, from common man to the biggest actor, from laborer to a politician, from an atheist to the most religious person, from a person staying in a slum to a nariman point resident, in brief from nobody to everybody to somebody. This means at whatever level you are at, you always have somebody to look upto till you reach highest level, which again is an undefined line in this city.
When I came in this city, I hardly had any idea about the life other then that I am going to join my husband here in a new company with 50% hike in salary. But this is the city which gave my mind more horizon to think. Life is not just about job, salary hike, marriage, kids, its far more than that. I don’t say that I have got the clarity of what I want to do, but I think it is a better situation then being ignorant. I am also one of the customers of this Mumbai dreams and hope to fulfill them in this city only one day.

Is being unprofessional is good way to retaliate in professional life….

There is always a time in office when we come across the situation when office life starts sucking and you end up thinking that what exactly you did for the full year. Year ends are specially those kind of times. You are evaluated for the things that you did from January till that moment. I had never been believer of marks system and always used to think that these marks doesn’t reflect intelligence of a person but I think that this is applicable to student life only when marks means only marks that you earn on the basis of the things you write on a sheet and it doesn’t matter that you understand what you are writing or you have rattofied that, it just answer the query that has been asked in exam paper. After working for 7 years in industry I don’t feel the same for the’ year end rating system’. These are just not marks based on the code you wrote for full year. It’s a combination of that code (for which you are paid salary), your PR skills, your connections, your ‘Yes Sir’ attitude, way you look or dress up, your maturity level, your professional or in that matter the unprofessional attitude, luck, intelligence of your superior and God knows what all. I have never done such evaluation for any person, I think I had always been junior most, so can only guess what a person expects from his subordinate and I think the above aspects cover all. I work in software industry and that too in India. India is nucleus of IT for the whole world and it is but obvious that the number of IT professionals is immense. I am also one of the member in this huge IT factory trying to make some difference in this pool of people so that the end of year can give some mental and monetary satisfaction. This year had not been good in this sense. I also got lost in this swirl of people who hardly could make a difference for the full year. This year reviews started and ended in same note ‘What else you did other then work’. Because of lack of good PR skills I couldn’t convince the person on other side of table that I am better then my peers with good intelligence level and attitude. I think these things take a little back seat once you go high up. They need some differentiating point, although I am never able to find it, I think nobody has, its only the way you befool the person by making him feel that he is wrong and you are right. Anyways I couldn’t do that this year and here I am sitting dissatisfied and thinking of following ‘No work’ attitude. I think this is the best reward for the company / project / mentor for granting ‘just average’ rating. The moment the feeling gets little pacified and lo you come across a junior passing by with much better rating and much better post, that too only because he is more smart then me as he can befool the company which I couldn’t. So I rejoin the black badge group who only sits and do nothing and show the management that its finally them who will be suffering and not me. This silent retaliation is best way to pacify yourself. No work, delays in deliveries, wear jeans on Monday, talk out loud on office floor, etc. But after working for so many years in industry, is this what is expected of me. By doing this, am I punishing my company, of which I am part, or myself? What’s the differentiating point between me and a person who is new to industry? There should be a difference between one-year-experience-holder-average-IT-professional and seven-year-experience-holder-average-IT-professional. I think this is the time to show this maturity. Sometimes the idealist solutions are better the practical solutions and only difficulty is the application of these solutions.

Globalization – Blessing or a curse??

I was going through the definition of word ‘globalization’ in encyclopedia, the tool that’s the lifeline for my net life. The term ‘Globalization’ started in somewhere around 1960s when different countries started thinking in terms of integrated network, where they can do trade, make investment, use labor by surpassing the boundaries and moving ahead in terms of internationalizing the nations.
Globalization started in economic arena but later on expanded to social and cultural areas also. So we can say we are trying to reach a place where we have global rules to do trade, global language, global culture and society…….but wait a minute, is the picture is as rosy as it appears from outside. Is globalization really a boom or a curse?
Today its very easy for a country, which is rich in some resource and poor in another, to do trade with the other, which has the opposite balance. A company from one nation can go ahead and do investments in the other one with far less barriers as compared to pre-globalization era. We hear so much of production happening in China/Indonesia/India/Philippines for US brands. People are getting employment because of this globalised market. Per capita of these nations have improved, less number of people fall under poverty line now, literacy rate has improved. But wait, is this kind of structure helping a nation or just an individual or a brand name in that matter. Is the brand or the person growing on the expense of under-developed nations. In today’s world we have so many poor and under developed nations like Guinea, Somalia which are rich in resources but are counted in world’s one of the most poor countries. When we go into thought process of globalised world, don’t we see that the rich nations taking due advantage of these countries in terms of resources, labor. In recent few decades we have heard much about term ‘outsourcing’.
Post globalization we have seen varied exchange of various culture. We can have Japanese food in any part of the world. Every kid loves burger, thanx to McDonalds which has brought burger on global platform. When I am walking down a street in interior of Lyon I see a india handicraft store. This all happened because of globalization. Cultural globalization has brought human beings closer, in which a person in one part of the world understand the roots and culture of the another person in other part. But is our society ready for this kind of change. When I see the history of human being, all the wars that has been fought since thousands of years and as a matter of fact are still continuing, it is quiet obvious that all these previous and present wars are fought for the sustain the individuality of an individual, a tribe, a religion or a nation. Our past and our present shows that mixing of two cultures is not as easy as it looks and people have fought and will fight for years to keep it intact. Under these circumstances globalization would not only be difficult to implement but also worth giving a thought that if ‘globalization with limits’ is better answer for world’s problem then ‘globalizations with no limits’. And if we want to put limits then what would be them? We can put limit on economics, trade, investment but can we put limit to cultural exchange which is bound to happen in wake of previous exchange. I just hope that globalization brings solution to the existing human problems and not become a new problem for the human existence.