Recession does not affect them!

Recession...all of us have heard about it, been afraid of it, many were caught in the turmoil. Since last September almost every person even remotely interested in finance has now become the guru, the know-et-all-about-recession person. I myself have been a part of many discussions in office and with friends about what would be the consequences of some I-banks going bankrupt, some turning into bank-holding companies, the bail-out packages, the impact on global markets and in India..the list is endless. But then..this blog is not about what has been discussed, analysed and established.

This is about those underprivileged kids for whom it is 24X7X365 days of recession, whether the markets sore or plunge.These kids, who, like any normal kids, would love to spend their time playing without worrying about anything in the world. Unfortunately, in some or the other ways they are pulled into those malicious organisations which "train" small kids to beg on signals, railways stations and other public places; or to be used to serve as a child labourer in factories, shops etc.. One fine day the poor kid wakes u and Boom...there goes his childhood and innocence for a toss. He is out there begging not for himself, but to give the entire amount along with "hisaab" to his boss who would otherwise beat him up for not being up-to-mark.

What would these kids know of recession, sub-prime crisis, Satyam scams? And even if they knew, will it affect them in any freaking way? All they could dream of is having a normal life in which they could study and earn in order to break loose of the dark shroud of gloom that they have been thrown into. These kids, who might not have even entered their teens have a look of a 30-year old guy in their eyes, ready to work in any condition, just in the hope of trading their labour for liberty. Probably they would never get to know what was the impact of the global meltdown on Indian economy or how did the inflation sore or how would the GDP growth be improved...they will strive for their living till they perish in the process.

So many campaigns have been started by several NGOs throughout the country which aim at ending this child labour. Yet, there seems to be a minimal impact on the plight of the lesser fortunate ones. Every citizen who has had a basic education is aware of the fact that this kind of child labour is illegal..yet most of us refuse to see through the problem or try to tackle it at our own level. If every person of the educated class decides to be a part of healing this system in some or the other way, either by participating in the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan, Teach India, NGOs, whatever suits them even for an hour of his/her entire week, change can be brought gradually. I think its high time we stopped blaming the government, the system, the norms of the society and pulled ourselves out of those cozy seats of ours to actually contribute in bringing a difference in the way we want...

From Kafii to CHAKORI :)

If you tell a lie 100 times..even that appears to be a truth"..how true! Well it all started when I was in college. One fine evening when our Annual Sports meet Josh was going on, me and my friends were watching a Volley Ball Final match..the atmosphere was tense for players as they had to bear the non-stop "hooting" by the spectators(not me!). All of a sudden something happened that grabbed the interest of all the people standing near the court. One of my friends shouted at the top of his voice.."KAAAAAFIIIII" and immediately to his response, as if through telepathy a person on diagonally opposite end shouted "ZYAAAADAAAA"...and before we knew it, the entire crowd was chanting this "KAAAFIII ZYAAADAAA" like a slogan stated never before. Inquisitive as i am...I asked many of my friends after the match as to what this kaafi zyaada meant and i got a single answer from all..."kafi zyada means kaafi zyada...na kuch kam na aadha!".

Soon people did not even care about what this meant , what context it was created for or who created it. Kafi Zyada became the cult word...whenever you were happy you exclaimed kaafi zyada!..whenever you passed a sarcasm on anyone's common sense you said kaai zyada..whenever you met some one across the road you greeted them with kaafi zyaada...the list was endless. Along came several other bakar words like bhokaal...bum bhokaal...bhaiyaaaa...chaukas chauraha...bawaliyaa...latest addition to this being CHAKORI :) But no matter how many words were devised...Kafii zyada has consistently topped the charts!

Such was the power of these cult words that even after 2 years since we have passed out of our college and are more and more swamped with work, whenever we meet old friends or even mere acquaintances from our college days, we just say kaafii and the gap just vanishes in thin air. Probably even 10 official get together or alumni reunion will not be able to charge us up more than talking to friends in our own kaafii terminology! I think our entire batch will owe this to the super talented junta who created such novel funky words which got picked up as a fun-thing but turned out to be one of the strongest media to keep people bonded.

Well as I said earlier, CHAKORI is the latest addition to this list of bizarre words and it is already becoming very popular in our tukbandis on orkut and facebook…lets see if CHAKORI becomes the new kaafi zyaadaa ;)

”Haan to fir junta…chahe chora ho ya chori..zor se bolo CHAKORI CHAKORI!!”

Special Thanks to : Prasoon, AD, moti, shobhit, pandit,PD...chodo yaar in short all moti ke laal of batch’07!!

The power of miscommunication

Zillions of books have been written about the effects of good communication and ways to improve a person's communication skills. But then, there are still so many people who have their age-old naive ways of conveying their ideas to others. Ever felt the pangs of frustration pop up when peole dont just seem to understand what you are trying to explain them? Its so simple and well planned in your head..why cant they just take a peek in it?Well apparently things are not that simple as they seem to be! Just imagine how you would have reacted in a situation if someone just walked up to you and said.."So dear, what was the result of the discussion that happened that day?". Irritated? Hell yes! Although he or she would have the entire discussion in his or her head in the utmost clarity..how the hell does it matter? You would not get the context by simply "peeking into their head"!

Few days back, my friend showed me a book titled "Eats, Shoots and Leaves". The context of this book was about a Panda who enters a restraunt, orders some food, eats it greedily and once he is done, gets up, takes out a loaded gun and shoots every one in sight. Just as he is leaving, somebody asks him from behind as to why he did all this.
"I am a Panda".
"So?"
"Look it up in the dictionary".
When the meaning of Panda was searched in the dictionary, this was the meaning people found "A Panda is an animal with four feet, and is black and white in colour. It eats, shoots and leaves."
Well it seems hilarious at first..but come to think of it, one wrongly punctuated sentence changes it all.

One single miscommunication can change the entire course of events. We have a very prominent example in history about the mass execution carried out by Felix Dzerzhinsky, the leader of Cheka( the military arm of Bolshevik communist government). In an operation to eliminate non-communists, Felix took a list of these non-communist prisoners Vladimir Lenin, who simply put a 'X' mark on the list and returned it to Felix. Taking this as an approval for mass execution, Felix killed 2000 people in one night. As it turns out, this was a case of sheer miscommunication - Lenin had a habit of putting an 'X' mark on all the documents which he had read to keep a track of read ones from unread ones; he neveractually approved of that massive killing by Felix!

All said and done, I really feel that it is more important to realize the power and misgivings that can occur due to one's miscommunication rather that just concentrating on the power of effective communication. Try to think what you actually want to convey to the person in question and if possible analyze it from a neural perspective. It really helps a lot. This should be brought into practice by even those who have a flawless communication, beacuse a single misunderstood event can make you regret for a lifetime.