Mother and Motherland...always lovable!

A short story. A boy of about ten, probably the son of a fisherman was weeping near the sea. He was weeping so badly that the sea goddess felt very sorry for him and went to him and asked what the matter was.
He told her, "I can't find my mother."
The goddess asked him to describe his mother.
He stopped crying. "Can you get her to me??" he asked.
"Why not, definitely I will find her for you. Just tell me how your mother looks like," the goddess replied. "Well, she is the most beautiful woman." said the boy.
The goddess summoned the newly elected Miss World. The boy started crying again. The goddess asked why he was crying even after she got the most beautiful woman on the planet.
"She is not at all as beautiful as my mother." replied the boy.
She got the Miss Universe. Same crying. Same reply. Miss Africa...same thing! Miss Angola, princess Kate, Jennifer Anniston, Julia Roberts, all were summoned. None were as beautiful as his mother!!

Then she came. His mother. He stopped crying, smiling as wide as his ears, he ran to her and hugged her. The goddess looked at her. She was carrying fish, had a stink on her. She was limping a bit, was very dark and had a squint in her eye. Not even one who would be allowed to house keep the beauty pageant arena! Yet the boy found his mother the most beautiful person in the world. There is much more than looks alone, something that cannot be explained in a sentence/paragraph, realised the goddess and went away.

We all love our mother and motherland irrespective of what kind of idiots her sons have become, irrespective of how much we all fight against each other, all of us love our motherland. We were never and are never ashamed of it! We do not need some one to come and change our lives, get money pumped into the country and thus make us lift our heads in pride. I don't want India to be a powerful economy. I want India to be a happy nation" said a great frenchman. He is a true Indian.

I don't believe the Prime Minister too being a nationalist would say something like that. Thank you media. Anyway, stop criticising your own people abroad Mr. Prime Minister.   

Just Justice!

Mahati's friend came to her for a help. He wanted her to accompany him to the prison as he wanted to meet his jailed father. He wanted some mental support too. Mahati gladly agreed to help her friend. Also, she has never been to a prison before. So, she wanted to check it out too. It wasn't exactly cinematic. It was so informal. There was no bullet proof glass, no telephones, barricades. It was normal. A little stricter than a hostel visit. They waited while his father was called for.

He was arrested for a bank fraud. A relative of his took a loan of ten lakhs from the bank in which he was working as a clerk. Since it was a relative, he himself gave assurance and granted him the loan with a gentle warning to not mess the money and his name. That was it. He never again heard from the relative again. The routine Indian drama where everybody knows who the gentleman is. Well, on the outer side, the richer guy is always the gentleman. He can buy things. He is smart. The sincere man got arrested, sentenced for seven years in jail, his house seized and felicitated with the name 'gadar.' No bail. He had no money, how would he get bail?

Mahati friend's father entered the place slowly. He lost all energy. Most importantly lost hope!! He was carrying newspapers of three different days. As the father-son duo were exchanging niceties, Mahati looked at the papers. They read,

News 1
A "celebrity" actor was granted bail not two days after he got arrested in hit and run case. Well, there are thousands dying daily. Is a bus driver or conductor arrested if the bus runs over a bike? The biker has to be careful. What if the "celebrity" hunts down a black buck? Was a train driver ever arrested for the hundreds of elephants that died by getting hit by trains? The elephants got in the way of the train. The black buck got in the way of the bullet! The case was under litigation for 13 years.

News 2
This "celebrity" actor turned chief minister was acquitted from an disproportionate assets case. All she had were ten thousand sarees, 25 Kg gold, 750 Kg silver among many other valuables, farm houses, lands and buildings. She only drew a salary of Re.1 as chief minister. After a litigation of 18 years, she was convicted for seven months and then acquitted. Her supporters are jubiliant. They all cannot wait to fall on her feet, stand behind her with their head bowed in reverence to the great warrior lady. She is the 'mother' after all.

News 3
Another "celebrity" who has been praised as the 'Bill Gates of India' by many, who even sat along side Mr. Gates in a function was granted bail finally, after a struggle for 33 months, hundreds of 'poojas,' 'yajnas' and donations on his name! The person and his brother were involved in the biggest accounting scandal the country has ever seen. Beat that Harshad!! In the scandal which shook the country and put the future of IT in India in jeopardy, there was a manipulation of accounts by $1.47 billion. Start counting!

Mahati then put down the newspapers. She then looked at the title of the newspaper. "Witness," it plainly translated into English. 'The money invested into running this newspaper itself is manipulated money, darker than black and the owner of the paper is leading the opposition of a state while on bail and all the innocent and powerless people can do is read in his paper about those who could "buy" things and only blabber about bad things going on in the country, have food, watch cricket and go to offices, accepting that the country will never change. If the leader of the opposition is out on bail and running one of the largest circulated newspapers in the world, what about those sitting in the all powerful seats? And those who supported those in power?' Mahati wondered while the poor man and his son talked as much as they could in the little time they had together.
The police sentry blew a whistle indicating that the visiting hours were done for the day.

Once a King, always a King!

This article has been copied from www.sportskeeda.com.
For the full article, please visit
http://www.sportskeeda.com/tennis/once-a-king-always-a-king-nadal-2015


This is the first time in ten years that Rafael Nadal has dropped out of the top five ranks. More importantly, this is the first time ever that he is going into the Roland Garros without atleast one 500 Masters trophy. There is the Rome Masters but do not expect him to win it because there is a reason behind it. The reason, he wants to win the French Open this year too without any stress.

Let us once compare his pre-French open statistics of 2014 and 2015.

Tournament	2014 Result	2015 Result
Qatar Open	Won	First Round
Australian Open	Finalist	Quarter Finals
Rio Open	Won	Semi Finals
Buenos Aires Open	Did Not Play	Won
Indian Wells Masters	Third Round	Quarter Finals
Miami Masters	Finalist	Third Round
Monte Carlo Masters	Quarters	Semi Finals
Barcelona Open	Finalist	Third Round
Madrid Masters	Won	Finalist

Well, there is not much of a difference in the number of major titles he has won. Probably, the Madrid Masters?? That too which he won against an injured Nishikori in 2014. The only big difference between the two years is that he could not save a lot of points. But, one can be sure that all this is mostly set up.

Back in 2014, before the finals of the French Open, there was a war of words between Nadal and Djokovic with either of them praising the other and all. That was a mind game never seen during French Open, at least. With Nadal winning the tournament every year, there is an increasing urge for other players to snatch it away from him and there is definitely a pride for Nadal to keep it with him. But time travels and even the strongest lion becomes weaker. It is then that it should use some wits to remain the king of the jungle!

Nadal has done exactly that. By praising Djoko last year, he literally removed all the heavy expectations the fans had on him. Remember him and Toni say that the ................http://www.sportskeeda.com/tennis/once-a-king-always-a-king-nadal-2015...................

#vamosrafa

Life of a METRO!!

Mana Metro! Hamara Metro! Namma Metro! Now, governments have got another reason to show how much they are "concerned" about the public. Building Metro everywhere. Something which remained in our imagination as an underground privilege in Kolkata some fifteen years ago has now come above. It is everywhere on the land. Every city or to put it right, every town wants a Metro for itself.

Kolkata, New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad. This is a fine list. The traffic woes and pollution horrors of these cities is a known fact and the introduction of a fast, traffic and pollution free way of conveyance is readily welcomed in such places. Especially because there has been an unprecedented, rapid growth in the last 20 years, the expansion of these cities has been haphazard. Also, the city limits have exceeded so much that they are eating into the neighbouring districts. Even though construction of Metro is such a pain when the city itself is not planned and built, once it is done somehow, it is a blessing.

But Kochi? Vijayawada? Visakhapatnam? Kozhikode? Kanpur? Ahmedabad? Seriously, is this some race going on between the metropolis? What is the urgent need for Metro everywhere? Just because Metro in Delhi is such a huge success does not mean it should be applied everywhere. Smart cities does not mean Metros bustling everywhere. Smart cities should be self sufficient. For that, they should be planned well. Planned so that surrounding villages are connected to them and they are well connected to major cities. But what use is it to plan a Metro before planning the city? Yeah, honey moon can be planned before planning the marriage ceremony but you don't eat dessert without first having the main course, do you?

Both the public and the public servants must be careful before planning out something. All these should not be done as issues of pride. They should be carefully planned. Because, anything involving trains is risky and generally such high end ones end up as 'white elephants.' So, while bidding for Metro or Olympics in your city, Mayor saab, think twice!

Neutral about Net Neutrality

Recently, a group of professors from IITs, IIMs and IISc came forward and supported the net neutrality. Their argument was that network providers are not at loss due to this. They also came up with a solution that one could charge differently for every Giga Byte of data used. That would go with net neutrality and also the network companies could be benefitted.Maybe!

They say that the term given to applications such as Whatsapp, Wechat, Skype, Facebook etc. is a nice, funny one. Over The Top (OTT) applications, they are called. A school might be benefited by the road laid to it, but it is wrong to say that the school is running only because of the road. But that is not the case here. If a person rents a home, he might be charged some amount for the house rent. If #hem(he/she) wants hot water, Television, wi-fi and furniture, #hem is charged extra for each of the benefits. That is because neither hot water nor electricity comes for free.

Similarly, if Whatsapp wants to provide messaging and voice calls for free over the internet, it is actually fine. There were many messaging applications on the internet earlier too. But now, through an internet package on a SIM card of a company, if messages and voice calls are being sent, it is basically grabbing away the market of the network providers. It would be like saying since the house was taken on rent, there should be access to hot water and wi-fi too. That is at the cost of the owner, is it not?

Fine. Now, the network providers start charging for these "OTT"s(yes, this name is funny!) and not the customer. Say, now, to have the application running on mobile phones, the companies providing voice calls over internet or those who provide online television or the e-commerce web sites start paying the network providers. There is healthy competition and the mobile companies are benefitted too. Since there is competition, the end prices might still be the same for the customer. But, what about small companies? New start-ups who felt they can do something just using talent without any necessity for paying? Talent is lost because of vested interests.

It is like, there is a shopping mall and those who can afford for rent there only can open a shop. Others cannot. This is bad for a progressive society and even for young entrepreneurs. Probably, the best idea would be to properly filter which websites are posing a threat to network companies and charge them accordingly or as the professors said, charge for every GB of data.
The solution should be such that every one is benefited. They were, in the past. Why not in the future too!!

To Kill a Mocking Bird!

Every year, thousands of birds from the Siberia region come to nest in India, a land of ever increasing number of castes and sub castes among human beings even though historically, there has been discrimination based on caste! Probably the animal stock and bird population of the country have started having the differences too. The entire flock of the Indian birds, which earlier used to welcome the birds from Siberia with warmth, like a whole family treats visitors, now no longer do so.

Few birds stayed on a beautiful tree, as beautiful as a central university in the capital city of Hyderabad. The birds have had their differences and started various unions, but never failed to welcome the birds from Siberia. They are special. Special because, when they go back to Siberia, they should tell among themselves what a wonderful place they had been to and more importantly, they should feel like home and go back not wanting to. They should be happy. As happy and free as they had been always! That is the reason why, even if there had been differences among various unions of the hosts, they never let that affect the hospitality the guests received.

The visitors were never restricted to any limit. They wandered free, sang happily and played joyously. The hosts either played along or did not, but they never restricted them. They had to go back smiling, thinking of the wonderful reception. One day, one league of the hosts had a festival. Since it was a strong league and felt that they had a strong reason to celebrate, they filled the tree with their feathers, including the residing place of the visiting birds! How much ever beautiful the feathers are, they looked bad in such huge numbers. When few other birds questioned them, they reminded them of their previous mistakes. Two wrongs make a right!!
Some birds were even threatened in the middle of night. 'Save our wings,' a new revolution started among the rest of the birds. Every bird chirped its own voice. This would have been better without the threatening but such massive discussion and 'tweeting' would not have occurred otherwise!

Unfortunately, when a visitor bird quavered its opinion, it was pushed to a corner. The bird, which was used to moving freely, was confused at this and decided to discuss with one of the host birds. It was told to stay within its limits. Never wander beyond it. Then it was told all about how certain birds historically did not have certain privileges. It could not understand why when there was a possibility for each and every bird to "tweet" its opinion and know others opinions, there had to be such a large feather show!! None of the explanations by the host bird came close to answering any of the doubts the visitor had and they could not even explain what its limits were in the tree!
The bird will go back wondering why it was called a white racist just because it was from Siberia and would doubt what racism really is!!   

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