Culture difference (West & India) my view......

Culture difference (West & India) my view......

I recently visited USA and that gave me a chance to see and experience the culture in the country believed to be a dreamland by most of the world. I was fortunate enough to share my apartment with one Korean and on American guy to experience the cultural diversity in detail.
I have been a part of the generation in India who are blamed to be influenced by the western culture be it our dressing, life style or anything one can think of. I also sometimes felt, we have become more materialistic especially after the 1991 post liberalization India. The main reason for me to believe the same was the reports in the media, listening to friends and elders. We have a habit of blaming our failures onto some or the other situations and the same happens when we see a shift in the mentality of Indian youths. They blame west for the problems that we face but my sincere question to them “Don’t we have other problems?” Why do we focus on the problems that seem to be created by western influence why don’t we look at the basic problem that we are facing? It seems to me to be nothing but the frustration and jealousness of the freedom or prosperity that we feel western countries are having. The elders blame the western influence for the same and I also thought the same as I dint know much about the country I was just over awed by the reading the stories of the US life style and economy and never tried to look at their culture. I came to this country for a very short duration of around 8 weeks but in some corner of my heart I had a desire of looking closely at the culture of this country, the time I landed in USA I realized the politeness, discipline and the courtesy they offer, everything is so systematic you really feel its an ideal world and believe me my friend this the real story. Every one respect each other and they have a sense of gratitude if you help them, and your social status does not matter to them. I will give an example of the bus drivers, when you get into the bus they will greet you and you also do the same, when you get down you thank them and they acknowledge the courtesy that you show towards them. I also saw the sense of equality and no job is supposed to be good or bad and you do whatever you can do by virtue of your education and expertise. The discipline that everyone follows here is also worth emulating, most importantly the road discipline, every one follows the lane system properly and they have a sense of respect towards the pedestrian and if you are crossing the road they will stop their vehicle and let you cross and that is more heartening when you consider the fact that most of the residents own their own transport. These few points stuck me as soon as I reached the place. I feel these are the things we should be emulating rather than cribbing about the negative influences.
In India we say we are following western culture when we do anything wrong but we fail to acknowledge the fact that we have so many good things to follow from west they why blame west if we have chosen to follow only the things that according to our Indian culture is improper like sex, divorce, dress style of the fairer sex, nuclear families and the lavish life style. I agree to the fact that here the laws are so strict that you really don’t want to be at the wrong side of the law but then its not the law but the enforcement of the law by who ever is responsible for enforcing the same. you don’t try to bribe because you know that any attempt in this regard would be futile and you could invite more trouble, in India the first thing that comes to our mind after we are caught in the wrong side of the law is to manage the person by any means, I am not saying that the 100% of our fellow country men are the same kind but the good guys are really in the minority. You meet an accident and you call the police and wait until they arrive in India we try to avoid the police as if they come that means unnecessary trouble, here the police will come and prepare the report and he will inform the insurance peoples about the damage unlike our country where in we inform the insurance company and claim more than the actual expense so that we can get more. One more good idea that we have here is SSN, everything that you do will be recorded against you SSN and the same would be available to every agency and they will know your history.
Most of the times I have seen the professionals in India cribbing about the overload of the work and even I felt the same but when I came here and saw the work culture I realized why do we take more time to finish some work, the answer is straight and its nothing but our inefficiency to manage time properly or to be more truthful our attitude of wasting time. I have seen every one making it a point to reach office by 8 AM the standard time for the office in India I see no fixed timings and that hurts the over all work culture and makes it difficult for others. Being a service based country there are times when we really can’t avoid to change the timings as we need to talk to the clients so we cant really help that but in my opinion only 10% of the total workforce really needs to interact with the client so what about rest 90%, why do they need to come in late and then stay till late.
I am not saying that every thing is perfect in this country but if we follow some of the good things our country will become a better place than it is now. Western countries follow the good things like yoga that we practice in India they don’t follow the corruption so they have chosen to follow what they feel is good and we have chosen to follow what is bad from them so it is a clear case of hypocrisy on our part.
Disclaimer: The views are my own and any one can have different views about the same.

Tare zameen par

I am not a movie critic to comment on a movie but some of the movies leave such an impression that sometimes we feel like talking about the movie with each in every one. Tare Zameen Par is one of those fantastic movie.
There are so many great things about the movie and i would talk about them one by one.
The first thing that i could conclude after watching the movie i realised it was a movie that one can watch with his or her parents, kids or any one for that matter. There is nothing like masala content in the movie and you wont feel uncomfortable in any of the dialogs or scenes or songs for that matter.
The second thing was the theme of the movie. The movie is based around a kid but the movie is not for the kids it is for the so called modern day parents who do not want to accept the fact that each and every child is different. We can't have two children with same competence. In todays world we have started comparing children beyond their abilities and age. The innocence is not there, they as kids are not doing something that we as kids used to do. That makes them emotionally insecure and more vulnerable.
The third thing that the movie did was the fun that they show in the art competition targeting the teachers and the competition show that we should be involved with the kids and try doing some of the things that kids do with them so that they would feel happy and we might feel relaxed. It is so much fun that every one would enjoy. I have had this experience.
The fourth thing was an eye opener for the parents to realize that they want child and not a medal machine who can just be the best in whatever the parents would want them to. Why push those little lives beyond their abilities and ruin them emotionally.
This is the reason why the creativity has gone down.
In a nut shell i can say this has been the best movies that i have watched in recent times and i can say no one would love to hate this movie.

Wish you all a happy movie watching.

Innings of career.

After finishing more than two years in the job, I realised that no matter how good or the bad days pass by you need to leave the things behind and start afresh for the next innings. I joined my present company in July 2005 and was trained for around 3 month. I was then warming the bench for some time before the real assignment came and I had to report to client's place in Bangalore. I joined my new work place in a different role in Jan 2006. I started my work without any prior experience of the same kind of work. I was fortunate to have a cool minded manager who helped me in getting to know about my work. Soon I started enjoying the work without much pressure. Thanks to the environment at my work place. I got few friends along the way. I saw the launch of the product that I was working on for the public and I felt really happy that I was a part of something that is useful for the public and that was the first sign of my work that others could have seen. As the time passed by the product got new features and new releases. The product got more robust and stiff competition from the grown up competitors in the same domain. Only thing that dint change with all these was the enjoyment that I would get from working on the same. The team also started growing and sometimes I was responsible for getting the things done by my colleagues as well. I worked on other projects also mostly to help my colleagues. The days were passing and finally I got an opportunity of the life time to go abroad and work on the same project in the same role, everyone was happy me, my parents, friends and all relatives but then as usual luck had its say and I missed on that opportunity. Now the day has come to leave this nice work place of mine and I have to go back to my company and work on some other project. The days are numbered now and I am writing mails to all my friends on the work place that ill be leaving in 3-4 days. The feeling of leaving the place and going to the new one makes me sad but that’s how life is. The only thing that is left for me now is to prepare myself for yet another innings.

Lagey raho munnabhai

When we are in office on weekdays we keep on thinking about the weekend that would come in next 5,4,3,2,1 day(s). We keep on talking to our friends and colleagues about our plans for the coming weekend. Being no different from others even I do so.

We had some treats planned amongst us so enjoyed a lot on Saturday except for the fact that we had had drive on HOSUR ROAD one of the nightmarish roads to drive on in Bangalore especially on weekends.

Sunday was quite boring till 5 in the evening. Everything changed after that guess why? We watched a great comical yet lesson giving movie, a sequel of Munnabhai MBBS, Lage Raho Munnabhai.
Though I am not an acclaimed movie critic even by my friends but yet I could say the movie is just great and I don’t think I will be confronted by too many peoples saying me that the movie is not good.
Everything is perfect.

Discrimination

While sitting in the ac room of my office and going through the hassles of work, I was just taking a break and started thinking about myself, my family, my state and finally my country. I was just lost in the thinking and something that struck me the most was the discriminations between amongst us. Be it education, freedom, job or anything else we have discrimination and to hide our face we give it a name of competition. Our parents and all elders in the society who are well educated with a university degree teach us don’t take this job instead go for that job what they think (No they are not at fault) is a good job and would fetch us a name in the society. Don’t you think it’s a discrimination against all those peoples who have taken up or would take that profession in their career?

I would just site an example of my friend who after finishing his BE degree form a prestigious college in Bangalore wanted to become a lecturer while carrying on with his higher studies that would have been sponsored by the college he was to join. Since he was charting a career path for himself he thought of taking consents from his friends and parents. He thought each one of them were educated and would think rationally to give a frank opinion based on some logical thought, but he was taken aback by the answers he got from each of them. Every one instead of talking about their views was talking about what society would think. He was totally upset and came to me narrating entire story.

I could not help him either as he was bound by the respectful tradition of our so called culture where in he could not straight away defy their parents and take up a career of his choice.

I was not surprised but the whole meaning of education appeared farce to me where in we just produce degrees and certificates, we cant develop the thought process of a person so that he could think rationally. These were the discriminations done by our parents who are not supposed to be highly informed and they don’t think the way as we think(We make these statements while talking to our friends and trying to prove that our parents and whole of their generation is dumb.) If we start thinking about the thoughts of our so called well informed, progressive and rational generation, we find so many examples those are more than enough to prove how smart we are.

I am a software engineer by degree and a software quality analyst by profession. I am working with an MNC. The job profile is to test different products that are launched by the company. More often than not while talking to my friends I feel pity on their thinking when they say with a touch of sympathy to me ouch you are into testing. Most of them are software engineer by degree and they have been taught all the subjects that I have read and cleared all the tests that I have cleared during the 4 yrs of my study in the Engg. college. I am not here to boast of my rationality and thinking even I used to think the same way before I actually started the work of Testing. I can’t be forceful in my thoughts and would make sure that every one agrees to what I say but I can at least expect a sense of respect from my near and dear ones to appreciate what I do. I am not asking them to agree to whatever I say but please give me a valid reason of why my work is not good. Don’t just start drawing conclusions with your fanciful thinking and without concrete facts otherwise it would be a shame to our knowledge and our studies and above all the time we have invested in getting the degree that I possess now and by virtue of which I am earning my living.

Next state that irks me is when we have a talk among our friends regarding the future life (I mean marriage) and the girls we like in our college or work place or in our neighborhood. Being youths and having a flying mind that could even beat a bullet train, we often think about girls around us and more often than not we settle down on a girl of our choice and if we are lucky(or unlucky) the girl in question also agrees to what we say. As the time passes and the events unfold we let our parents know about the facts and the first question they ask is the caste and religion. I fail to understand the arguments given by them in support of their questioning. I don’t mind and I think no one would mind if they ask about other credentials of her and most would be more than happy to explain her likes, dislikes qualities, habits and what not but instead of doing this they will just become adamant on their thoughts close their mind so that other’s thoughts cant enter their mind. The only answer that a foolish mind of mine can get is the discrimination. They are just discriminating against cast and religion. By doing so they are discriminating against our freedom also. They feel that we are just a machine who should work exactly as expected for a given set of inputs. They fail to think about the basic human instinct of freedom; since they are also human it becomes more culpable on their part.

I know these things and I m sure most of us reading this article would know these things and would face the situation in their life but we cant change the world and the thinking unless and until our own conscience starts scolding us every time we discriminate.

True Friend - A blessing

O! God what else should I cry for,
happiness or ecstasy?
O! God what else should I ask for,
peace or solidarity
for you have given me everything,
not in terms of stars or moon
but in terms of a person
who is so close to me
may be next to you
which seems to me
the best ever creation of yours.
Someone to share the problems,
to multiply the happiness,
to make me feel at the top.
That someone is a true friend.
O! God that is what you have blessed me with.

For a Friend Like You

For a friend like you,
Who is adorable as well,
i can go and have a dip,
in the pond of feelings,
full of fun and joy.

For a friend like you,
i can sail out of an ocean
with the invaluable pearls,
they are neither red nor green,
they are the shared moments,
the moments to be cherished.

For a friend like you
i can ride a mountain,
to pick the shiny pebbles,
neither round nor cornered,
they are the misunderstandings,
which developed between me and you.

for a friend like you
i can roam in a jungle,
to see the changing flora,
they are just like friendship,
priceless enjoyable and everlasting,
through which is blowing a cool breeze
which will cool your mind and mine too,

for a friend like you.........

Loneliness & Solitude

A feel of loneliness and solitude,
is it a problem of attitude?
or, a dilemma of life satisfying and pacifying?
haunting me like a bug,
sometimes even giving me a hug.
Is it an indication or deviation?
of the long road of life to come,
or a mystery simple but unsolved?
waiting for an angel to come
to light the way with a ray of hope,
till the horizon of satisfaction.

My College RNSIT

A great start,
with class and art,
coming up so fast......
To build the technocrats,
somehow with power and guts.
To lead the world,
in coming future,
to win the race,
what we have to face.

Recess Love

Two innocent faces,
during the lunch recess,
sitting on the stairs,
talking of their flavours,
looking through each other,
holding the hands together,
shrinking the world,
just in a volary of their own,
a scene in the recess to be shown.

Knowing Myself

There is a person i know,
talkative and perplexed,
sad never, happy ever.
Living in the present...
leaving the future, forgetting the past.
There is a person I know,
raring to go for the battle,
not with swords but the words,
his act comes first thinking later.
There is a person I know,
who is ruminant and ecstatic,
in some ways he is erratic,
There is a person I know..
I can say I know myself.