Mission Fantasy: Do we really deserve to go for it??

Known for the world’s best public transportation system in the world, London has undoubtedly the best underground metro service one would have ever seen. Its connectivity and punctuality is something many would love to salute. Long distances have been made pretty quick and comfortable and the constant urge for its improvement has kept it alive and young all these years. The best part of it is that, it gives immense time to do some of your unfinished business. Yes, I mean it. No matter if you want to read novels, magazines, news papers, or watch movies on tablets and smart phones, play games or even if women want to do some makeup including the eyebrows and nail polish, the London underground is the best place to be ready with all these stuff without spending any extra time.

News papers and magazines has always been an attraction for me and what else could I expect from a city where newspapers and informative magazines are not sold. Yes, they are free and all the business depends on the advertisement.

Last Friday when I was travelling to the office, I came across an article which eventually has compelled me to come up with this blog.

India in news, in London!! That’s something which made me proud and to read it would be no less than a ritual to me. And if that it be a head line, that’s definitely either something too good or too bad. Well, the rocket photograph along with the bold letter “India” made me sure that I need not hide my face this time. It was the Indian mission to Mars. Followed it, were all accolades for Indians to achieve this feat. Yes we could be the fourth in world and first among the Asian countries, if we succeed and it would indeed be a remarkable feat.

Well, before I could celebrate India’s success initiative in UK, I was taken up by a cute lady’s sarcastic comment, sitting just beside me. “Are Indians eventually planning to move to mars if there would be life?”

What an absurd question it was?  All through the day, it kept on hovering over my mind and eventually I was convinced by her absurd question.

I would like to post a question to all my readers, why do we want to spend millions of pounds on missions which are of no benefit to the people? If that is only for pride, I would say, Pride is not the only thing, one could live with!

We need many more basic amenities which are the need of the hour. We don’t have a proper transportation system in place in most of the cities; we are a nation where booking a confirmed train ticket 3 months in advance, is considered to be a heroic achievement. We don’t have proper roads, bridges and other necessary infrastructure. We don’t have electricity in many villages. We do not have enough funds to provide education and employment opportunities to our youth. We do not have proper health services in many of the cities and specially villages, We do not have proper security arrangements where women can move without fear of being harassed and raped!; and above all, we do not have a lavatory in every house in the country, public toilets being a distant dream!!  

Why don’t we suffice these basic requirements which could be advantageous to the common masses?  We could have invested these funds for greater good, such as health services, primary education and other employment schemes which could provide bread and butter for people who still starve for food.

What was more painful is the fact that these funds are incurred when we (India) still take financial aid from Britain, and may be other countries which I am least bothered to learn at this moment.

Yes the English have ruled us for a considerable long period and exploited our economy, but India which we know today is quite independent at least not to beg from other countries and spend millions of rupees extravagantly on some fantasy mission. We cannot justify this spending anyway, neither to the Indians nor to other nations whom we owe.

The government need to make the people realize that they really care for them and justify the constitutional meaning of a government of the people, by the people and for the people rather than government of the people, by the people and for the fantasy.

Best friends?? True Friends?? Or just Friends??

Friendship is in the air and all the social networking sites are flooded with friendship quotes and wishes. As I logged into my Facebook account today, I was delighted to see umpteen number of friendship quotes. I was happy and browsed for some good friendship quotes on websites for my wall. But, Alas!! As I browsed through, I could not find one which could suit my choice. Most of the friendship quotes were for best friend or friends with favor or friends with benefit or at all, for true friends. For a moment, I wondered why we discriminate between friends adding adjectives before the word 'friend'.

Friendship is just like any other relationship, which enables us to socialize ourselves. We all need friends. Moreover we search for this relationship in all other relations!! We look for a friend in our Parents, in our spouses, in our colleagues, in our off springs, in our employees and where not. But what make this friendship different is that we still try to find hidden friends in our so called 'friends'.

As I write this blog, it makes me thoughtful over all friends whom I had lost in the course of several years. I am deeply lost in the thoughts of people with whom I had some of my best times and still we cross each others as strangers. With all the philosophical and worldly knowledge of life we sometime fail in relationship for whatever reasons it is. And this would be the cause that gives birth to quotation of one 'best friend' over many.

As we grow up, we leave behind us lot of people (friends) for different reasons. That reason could be long distance, ego, ethics, compatibility, expectations and many more undefined behavioral aspects. Most of the relationships go through a rough patch at some point of their life cycle, which is the deciding point. Any relationship can be compared to a swinging Pendulum. It has a positive high and a negative low. Any relationship starts with the neutral and proceeds ahead towards the positive high and then swings back towards the neutral and the negative. It is the period between the positive high and neutral which is crucial in maintaining any relationship. The moment we dare to change the course of a swinging pendulum towards the positive side from negative, our relationship succeeds for the life time.

Though it may not be possible all the times, again for the same known reasons, but the realization of these factors may be quite helpful in reducing the failure rate of any relationship in future. Life is an experience, and these experiences are to be cherished and utilized in life for better relationship.

I believe that friendship should remain as an untarnished relationship and should be as natural and true as it could be and let “friend” be its superlative form. There is nothing called a true friend and a best friend. It is just friend!! Being a friend should be unconditional and there should not be a search for the hidden friend within friends. The moment one starts looking for a hidden friend it simply implies that it’s not friendship at all. It is always better not to befriend and let other relationship take precedence over friendship which may or may not have a hidden friend in them. This will ensure a psychological advantage of believing in friendship and friends!!
 

Telegram service in country to close at 9 pm today

Change is the law of nature!! Ever since the evolution of life, change is the only thing which has been constant.

It’s not been too long that telegram service was one of the most prolific and easiest means of communication for long distance. Though many of us may not have the luck to experience it at first hand, but I am sure, we all would have heard our parents or grandparents talking about it at some point of time.

I remember the days when we used to make trunk calls. Our generation have seen the days when people took pride in telephones and latter, on mobile phones, but this pride has lasted for quite a short time. In no time, say in a span of 5 years, mobile phones has spread so widely, that it has become the easiest and the most common means of communication we have around us today. From rich to middle class and poor, it’s being used like never before.

Today, the hundreds of year old telegram service is going to say goodbye to all of us. Though it’s going to disappear in the pages of history from few hours from now, I wonder if anyone is ever going to miss it. We already have a developed telegram system in the form of telephones, mobile phones and Internet. I would rather say the telegram system has already been transformed long before into more effective means of communication and this end is something which could have been avoided.

All what this makes me and millions of other people, is what we say “nostalgic” and that for something which has not disappeared completely from us. We still have it but in a different form. It is not more than a technological change and I believe it should have been long before absorbed by the telecommunication companies just in the form of transformation that would not lead to another nostalgic day in the history of communication system.

There are hundreds of products and services which has transformed over a span of time in the name of advancement and had everything had an end like this, it would be of no significance, except for ending up adding yet another day in the history syllabus for our younger generations.