May the downtrodden be “UPLIFTED” by God!

I am hurt.

It is a major issue, slapped on every page of every news daily of this country. The entire “reservation against reservation” bit is draining me of all thoughts that are pro-education. I don’t know if my two bits about this matter would really be of much interest and much less of any use but for the sake of one more voice in the cry for justice, I shall voice my opinion.

I, for one, refuse to have a less qualified, DALIT doctor (who by the way, is no better than the rich-man’s-brat, who bought a seat in a college and does not deserve it AT ALL) to touch an ailing body of my family or friend and trade a simple solution to a simple illness, for DEATH. We all know better than giving away a doctor’s or an engineer’s seat to people who don’t deserve it. Fine, if he or she gets the marks or grades required for the entrance, then I am for having them pay a lesser amount, vis-à-vis an open category student, as fees. If they are intellectually at par with a hard working student of any category (which, unfortunately, can only be judged by the marks he/she reserves in his/her graduation exams or entrance exams, which I am not very happy to accept but… oh well…), then it is fair to grant them a higher education for a lesser price. But if you are saying “let’s trample all over the open category student just because we are a minority” then go take a hike. Worst case, let them get their reservations in fields that are not risking lives, something like management or PR or such-likes; but please, spare them from being doctors and engineers. These are professions dealing (directly and indirectly) with human life.

The open category is mistaken to be as high as the statistics show in the papers. There are ‘freedom fighter’s’ and the ‘government servant’ quotas that are being overlooked. Next you know you have 5% reservation for ‘unemployed bar dancers’ or 10% reservation for ‘Kashmiri militants’ whose fathers died in a shoot out. Why have ‘open category’ at all? Just divide all seats and distribute them amongst the ‘poor and suppressed’, while you are at it. I have been in the eye of the storm. I know how many of these ‘poor and oppressed’ lot really want to study and make something out of their lives. They are there because they have the safety-net of such reservations granting them their seats. They are there because an engineer will make more money than a union leader amongst factory workers. They know that a doctor will be able to buy a nice car within two years of his practice but a street urchin who strives and manages to run a chai-katta will not be able to achieve that dream in a lifetime. They know that the stupid government is meant to be gullible and by making a noise about their ‘poor’ state of affairs, they can manage to beg and get away with the ‘sympathetic’ government granting them their ‘rights’. Sydenham had a bloody OBC for a principal and an SC for a registrar… I challenge anyone to get a positive feedback about Sydenham from any of its alumni, from the past decade. The idiots (read management) don’t have common sense and what was even more pitiful was the fact that they were both Ph.Ds. Guess how they got their doctorate… CORRECT, reservations!

I am sincerely thankful to the Lord for giving me a wonderful family which is well off and touch wood, will always be… But then again, why are they not ‘poor and oppressed’? I would have had it much simpler then! (You get the point, don’t you?)

Coffee time vignette

I was revisiting my memory bank to see, what are the things I have truly left behind? Soon and sure enough, I landed in a debate with myself.

Amongst all the things, a substantial chunk was of ‘people’. A bunch that I, very loosely, called ‘friends’. So the debate I was speaking of was, if I have called them friends, I wouldn’t leave them behind and if I have managed to get over each one of them, then they are not ‘friends’, in the truest sense of the word. These were acquaintances. That’s where the debate, pretty much, ended.

Then there were some fond memories that sort of felt like wiping dust from a photo album and smiling at the moment captured on film; a moment that was never to return. Some were embarrassments which made me slink in my chair and still a smile was felt running from one end of my lips to another, albeit, I couldn’t see it. A lot of these things, we might say, are taken for granted but I refuse to accept that. These are things that keep you going. I think it works like a pendulum; if it does not go in the opposite direction, it will stop moving. A trip down memory lane is not so much of an adventure as it is an evening walk. At least, that’s what I would like to believe. I have no siblings and I have never been able to share a funny moment from history with anyone in the wee hours of the morning, when I can’t sleep, so I tend to smile to myself and think nothing of it. But I have rarely pulled out an album from an old drawer and I kept feeling it was rather ‘old-ish’ to do such a thing. Felt like I was sixty nine and my children had settled in the states and I had nothing better to do than to stare at pictures and wile away my (remaining) life. But I was surprised to have a reaction which was quite contrary to this popular belief. I actually refreshed myself for a new day when I saw the album with my pictures with different relatives. Playing in the arms of an annoying aunt or of a nice uncle who passed away a few years later. Having my hands around an old pals shoulder, who I have not called or heard from for eons. The funny picture of the girl I would flirt with and still never got around calling her for kicks…. So on and so forth (I’m sure all of you are now finding this a cliché because I have started sounding like an ad for retirement solutions). Actually, I really have nothing much to discuss, just felt like writing such things down for posterity. I mean, what else does one do with a blog?

Next on the list: old greeting cards.

Eh? What am i doing here?

I was reading some blogs just so I get inspired to update mine (as for the sake of good old public demand… after all that’s what keeps such futile sites ticking, right?)

What I realized is that, all of them were updates and not works of thought or literature, so I guess I shall not break the trend.

Job: none.
Searched and searched and could not find one.
And so my father, like all fathers would,
Asked me to do something with my wasting boyhood.
And my mother stood far and gave me a stare,
“what?” I asked. “do you really think I care?”
She shook her head in shame and said,
“son, you need to get out of bed
and help your old man in any way you can.
There are responsibilities of a young man”
… so here I am in a dull, cold room.
Doing a bit to keep away the gloom.
But I feel like I have a duty that calls.
The world needs me to help it stand tall.
There is something waiting to happen out there.
If only I knew where, if only… I knew where…

Na, I’m fine. Frankly, I’m at the brink of getting a nice placement in a place I want to be in. I shall put it up as soon as I am sure I am through. Until then, I shall glare at customers and passers-by. You can stop glaring at the screen. Go away! (Phbbt)