Saturday, July 2, 2011

Romila Thapar: India's past and present

Everyone has their beliefs as to how they fit into the world. However, only those who think for themselves, rather than blindly follow, will truly experience. A denial of one’s roots, whatever the attitudes and realities of the present, is an invitation to a crisis of identity. This is my opinion on history.

Romila Thapar: India's past and present — how history informs contemporary narrative



In conversation with IDRC President David M. Malone, historian Romila Thapar, widely recognized as India's foremost historian challenged the colonial interpretations of India's past, which have created an oversimplified history that has reinforced divisions of race, religion, and caste.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Last Day at CSC !



Hello Team,

I want to bid farewell to you all and today is my last day at work in CSC.  Over the span of 2 years 4 months 15 days,  I have seen many stereotyped resignation e-mails still today I can't come up with something original to say.

The decision to leave the firm was a planned one. I was selected for MBA and the bondage period of 2 years as fresher was served. For nearly as long as I’ve worked here, I have known that I might one day leave this company. And now that this has become a reality, please know that I could not have reached this goal without your encouragement and care.

CSC has helped me in shaping my career path and now it is the right time for me to bid adieu.   I have enjoyed working with you and I appreciate my friends and colleagues for providing support all these years. It's been great interacting and knowing each one of you.

Comrades, please do keep in touch at Facebook (Profile Link : http://www.facebook.com/Yayaver ) where I am always alive and kicking :P

Cheers,

Himanshu Rai
Information Security Engineer
CSC

"Love your job, but never fall in love with your company because you never know when company stops loving you... " --- N R Narayana Murthy

Friday, June 10, 2011

Dil jaise dhadke dhadakne do....

There are so many books, blogs and magazines in this world, nobody can read them all. Nobody is waiting for another one of them. If I didn't have to write in order to keep myself together, I wouldn't do it. I don't want to be a seasoned writer, this isn't the reason I write.

Every man dies, not every man observe how he really lives. I enjoys writing and reading but it consumes a lot of energy. I am not even replying to the comments. Such is the phase of life going on.

I am going for higher education and have faith on my talent. This job has taught me not to expect the better man to bow before the fool. To be better take more guts than average thinking. Those who can't say Fuck to their status, can't design the future.
There are people who have once survived through some life time experience and don't understand the nature of it. Experience can supply the information but even then wisdom may lack. Equally, There are people who have not gone through life time experience but have understand and written about it. I do not understand this natural world and mysterious universe of relations . I do not understand. That is why I write, because I do not understand. I just have no choice, or rather, it wasn't I who chose.

Many persons have tried to emulate IT sector top-down economic model, but most are stuck with the Indian reality. Hence, I decided to jump directly in Indian reality. Also, there is no point in doing what is not my strength.

I have became strong in the personal life as lot of past issues were closed. A lot of manipulative and playful relationships were broken. The women psyche, I started understanding a little here bit in this place. But, overall saying goodbye to friends is most difficult of all seprations..

Time to wind up memories. Time to pack up. A new chapter in life. Will miss you Hyderabad !

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Fathers and Sons

One realizes one's root when every new occurrence brings back a memory and search for an identity is over. I was trying to track history of my family through relations of fathers and sons and tell a simple story. It is not summary of growing divide between the generations but a simple tale documented fist time ever.

It is a story of my family based on the values that changed with time yet remain same in core. My great grandfather had been 10+2 passed out (first in my family) in 1902. He was born in mid 1880's and joined Primary School as a teacher despite of Zamindari background. My grandfather was born in 1920's and was educated till High-school. He didn't do any job due to his Zamindari Background. Such was the difference of view between them.

My grandfather was eldest of three brothers and remain a farmer till his last breathe. His brothers went to Jharia Bihar to work in coal mines. With the Zamindari system being abolished after independence and few court cases, the family fortune declined slowly. When great-grandfather was on the verge of the death, he said only this to his sons and grandsons : Let all things fall apart but never compromise on the education of children.

I am not eligible to comment on the education of families of other grandfathers. My grandfather has three sons and one daughter. We call biggest uncle babuji and middle one chacha. My father is younger of all siblings.

There were tough days coming ahead for the family. Babuji  followed the word of his grandfather and the level education in our family gradully rises above other families in the village and community despite of financial constraint.

The economical crisis can crush the dream and a man has to compromise lesser than his talent. When it is like not to have enough, its a all different learning experience. Tough times never last, but tough people do! That was the experience of mine father and his brothers of all those years.

It is assumed now-days that person whoever expected the young to be responsible anyway lacks sense ! But a generation ahead of me struggled and achieved education and economic stability.  Today, whenever I learn anything I remember the last words of my great grandfather that changed destiny of a farmer family.

I realized that during hard times, families pull together. If I observe anything from my past and forefathers, success will come by pulling together as families and stressing good education for everyone.

It is always better to have seen a place than never to have visited it. That I always remember while visiting many places around the world. My ancestral place still gives me different feeling whenever I experience some time span there. What is a man without forefathers vision and care...

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Ten Issues - 15

1- Why Pandits aren't returning to roots ? : The Pandits, though, will tell you another story: of murders and village loudspeakers issuing threats. Jagmohan is rarely the central figure that Kashmiri Muslim makes him out to be.

2-Will Pakistanis put their national interest first? by Harini Calamur :If there is any country in the world that is a poster child for dictatorship, it is Pakistan. Over the last two and half decades at least, Pakistan seems to have been more stable and more prosperous under its military dictators than its “democratically” elected leaders.

3- Islamic Banking System: Threats and Opportunities --- The Islamic banking system is an important component of Islamic finance. Islamic finance has unique features because its foundation is laid on the principles and rules of Islamic law (sharia), which states that everything is owned by Allah and man has only been permitted to use it.

4- The predicament of the Islamic Republic by Hamid Dabashi. Green Movement's focus on civil rights voids it of the appeal needed to spark an Arab Spring-like revolution. Author is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.

5- Argentine Free Book Movement woos readers : In Buenos Aires, the 'City of Books', a novel idea sees books left in public places for readers to pick up and enjoy.

6- A Critique of Reporting on the Middle East by Nir Rosen : Too often consumers of mainstream media are victims of a fraud. You think you can trust the articles you read, why wouldn’t you, you think you can sift through the ideological bias and just get the facts.

7- The Insularity of American Literature: Philip Roth Didn't Deserve the Booker International Prize : "There is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world...not the United States," Horace Engdahl, permanent secretary of the Nobel Prize jury, recently said. "The US is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature...That ignorance is restraining."

8- The UID Project and Welfare Schemes : This article documents and then examines the various benefits that, it is claimed, will flow from linking the Unique Identity number with the public distribution system and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. It filters the unfounded claims, which arise from a poor understanding of how the PDS and NREGS function, from the genuine ones. On the latter, there are several demanding conditions that need to be met in order to reap marginal benefits. A hasty linking of the PDS/NREGA with the UID can be very disruptive. Therefore, other cheaper technological innovations currently in use in some parts of the country to fix existing loopholes in a less disruptive manner are explored.

9- Uttar Pradesh to set up 2000+ mandis : The Mayawati government proposes to reduce the distance that farmers must travel to take their produce to market to an average of seven kms. This should help farming families boost their incomes, writes Devinder Sharma.

10- Revolution U by TINA ROSENBERG : The Serbian capital is home to the Center for Applied NonViolent Action and Strategies, or CANVAS, an organization run by young Serbs who had cut their teeth in the late 1990s student uprising against Slobodan Milosevic. Author throws light on what Egypt learns from the students who overthrew Milosevic.

Thought of the Day : Economist Paul Krugman once remarked: If [George W.] Bush said that the world was flat, the headline on the news analysis would read 'Shape of Earth: Views Differ'. It was a pithy summary of how news organizations are now so obsessed with the idea of "balance" they will give both sides of any argument equal coverage, even if one side is plainly absurd.