So close yet so far meeting Bal Thackeray face to face

I still regret about the only chance destiny had given me to see and meet the Shivsena supremo Balasaheb Thackeray. No I am not a big fan of his that I would do anything to meet him, but still no one would be a fan of Dawood Ibrahim or for that matter our Prime Minister but would be interested to meet them if given an opportunity.

It was the case with me, opportunity was provided, as I had to cover an assignment of interviewing Suhas Khamkar a body builder from Mumbai who had won gold at Mr. Asia Championship. Fortunately he was a Sena fan and decided to visit Matoshree after coming to Mumbai. I along with my photographer were waiting outside Matoshree at Bandra and we had planned to get in with them as individually we would not have been allowed.

And then was the moment, I had entered Matoshree with my photographer after Suhas Khamkar's car went in. Many people haven't had this opportunity even after two to three year of their journalistic career but I was living it in the first six months of my career. After getting in I was talking to Suhas as he was waiting for the boss' call to meet him at his room on the second floor.

But then an incident that would make me regret for I don’t know how much time to come took place. As everyone was leaving a security guard told me to wait down and I like a stupid followed his suggestion/advice/order whatever it was...........

I was in two minds whether to go or no after everyone left, I even went to the first floor but then returned to my original place thinking that this is my first visit to the place and I must do whatever ordered.

I thought about it and forgot it, but as I reached office my seniors and colleagues made me feel like I have done a grave error and I should have called them or even the photographer to go upstairs. It was then that I had realized that this was an error and I could easily have got a page one story and some questions with Balasaheb Thackeray

This was the small journey of my opportunity and the missed chance that will haunt me for a long time. Again I would like to clarify that I am not a big fan of his, in fact I am a critic but it would have been great if I had met him.

An unusual Conversation

The following I had written for one of my friend's college assignment.... Its a conversation of a girl and a Police inspector, the catch here is the girl wants to confess her murder but the policeman takes her lightly......

Me – hello, hello
Ins – kandivali police station, who is speaking
Me – I am… I am…
Ins – yes please tell me beta who you are and what do you want.
Me – actually uncle I want to tell you something, i…
INS – yes dear speak out, first tell me your name
Me - I am Pooja, Pooja Domadia
Ins – okay now tell what you want to tell me
Me – actually uncle (takes deep breath)
Ins - yes dear say, don’t be afraid.
Me - I want to tell you something
Ins - so please say it fast I have other work also
Me – actually I have seen a murder
Ins - what! (Shockingly) what are you talking about?
Me - yes uncle I am not lying. I have witnessed a murder and that too…
Ins - hey kid see now I don’t want to listen to this non sense
Me - uncle (starts crying) please I am not lying.
Ins - okay so you are telling the truth
Me – yes uncle please believe me, I have myself seen the murder
Ins - okay so can you please describe the scene (in a sarcastic and joking tone)
Me – actually they both entered our house in the afternoon and attacked us, I went to the bathroom and hid in the bathtub and they didn’t came to know that there were two people in the house. So they…
Ins - okay so the murder has taken place at your residence. Sounds interesting, hmm… then?
Me – they wanted to loot our house but my mom didn’t allow this to happen so easily, so they…
Ins - so they killed your mom right?
Me – yes! They killed her with a knife; it was a sharp edged knife. Then they fled taking our jewelry and I don’t what other things
Ins – hey!!! (Angry and frustrated) enough is enough now I am not going to listen to this crap anymore, now stop it or else I will come and give you such a tight slap that you will forget to call anyone in your entire life. Stupid fools. The stupid parents just give phones to their kids and they keep on troubling us. If the next time you call me then I will catch you and put you behind the bars. (inspector hangs up the phone).
Me – okay then don’t believe me you rascal.
(Girl hangs up the phone)

Finally she laughs holding the knife filled with blood in her hand. Seeing the dead body lying near her she haves a sigh of relief. May be she was suffering from a mental problem and may the police inspector should have heard her.

Iksula – the bad Experience

The below post is written to describe the latter part of my job which was not the one we like for the rest of the experience I have written another blog. My first job was less of a professional world and more of an extension from College life with majority of young people of my same age. Everything was going well until a day when the boss decided to change the system and the Golden reason they gave for this was – RECESSION

So following is my time line and the unfolding of events with date and details.

13 Feb – The new policies were mailed to everyone. I replied to the mail to Tushar (my Team Lead) only.
14 Feb – I didn’t reported to office as it was my first Valentine day celebration with Pooja and therefore was fired from content writing and was told to concentrate only on Rambhai
19 Feb - I made a plan and force myself into content on the advice of Tushar
20 Feb – The social networking sites are blocked
23 Feb – Many useful websites are blocked and I wrote a couple of mails to Tushar
3 Mar –Mail saying that certificates would be required to prove medical leaves was sent to everyone. I write a mail opposing it and cc it to the entire team.
5 Mar – meeting for certificate and half days. I am forced to do the PPC campaign without having any knowledge of it, reducing my time in content.
6 Mar – our discussion about medical certificates carries no value as it doesn’t please Samar. I reply to that mail sarcastically. My 4 half days salary is cut.
17 Mar – I was shifted to Piyush Ramteke’s team for doing QA/QC work under Heena.
3 April – The whole team structure was changed and I was shifted under Mayur to do the SKU checking which was a purely Excel work.
12 April – I went and spoke to Samar about my dislike in excel work and interest in writing and he offered me to quit the job as Iksula didn’t had writing projects. I gave him my last day as 24 April but he made it 17 on the insistence of Piyush Ramteke.
17 April – My last day at Iksula and a grand party at Spirit where I paid 500 rs and night out at Sachin’s place where I, Vispy, Nikhil, Sachin, Harish and Vrushi were present.

Hence it can be said that out of the total 11 months the maximum things I learned was in the last two months.

The "GIRL PROBLEM"

“I have periods, I won’t be able to go to the temple”, “My those days are on, I can’t touch the water, “Don’t touch me my that days are on”. These are some statements that we listen very often from girls or women. In the term “we” most of them are girls as the females feel uncomfortable and embarrass to say it in front of guys or men.

From the traditional times there has been so much hype attached to the menstrual period that a women goes through that it has almost become like a stigma.

There is no doubt that Indian society is filled with hypocrites. On one hand we treat women as gods and on the other hand the treatment meted out with them is believe it or not "worst " to say the least. Even our pet dogs would receive a royal treatment than them in these days. You can’t visit the temple, cannot touch the god, cannot cook, cannot touch the water and a list of dozens of don’ts. But why the hell such a big noise on a God gifted natural phenomena is the biggest question.

We all see today girls following some of these so called traditional mannerisms, but you ask them why and you get some lame answers like it’s our tradition, it’s our culture, our elders have said this and such other stupid comments to the extent that its sinister. Now can you believe that a natural phenomena being abused as a SIN. I definitely can’t accept these thoughts and feel pathetic when I see my female friends missing the important things due to this stupid belief.

Some say that this was done in the older days as to give a rest period for women as they used to work a lot, but then how did the “not touching the god things” comes in? This just shows that some men (our ancestors) would have said this and this became a tradition. And now things are messed up to such an extent that the women work throughout the day and cannot worship the god. This is the height of stupidity and some self proclaimed modern women also believe this and follow it. The so called liberal media also don’t have the guts to challenge these blind faiths. It’s gone to such an extent that even to sell a sanitary napkin the advertisers show a blue liquid instead of the original red blood. When we can have open advertisements about Condoms, underwear, bras and panties then why shying away from this. If they are so uncomfortable then they should stop advertising them altogether or even better stop selling them.

I just want to ask that why to treat women in such a bad way to say the least, social hypocrisy at its best though. Would we have treated the boys or males in the same way if any such natural thing would have been with us?

Like Father Unlike Son totally unlike Grandson

Caste based politics is the mantra of modern day India. Well in this blog I would only concentrate on Maharashtra and specifically one particular family who proclaim to be the savior of Maharashtra. Till then all of you who has been in Mumbai for a week also would have come to know I am talking about the beloved Thackeray Family.

Firstly let’s take a look at the influential Political Family Tree of the Thackerays.

Prabhodan Thackeray, a father to Bal Thackeray and Shrikant Thackeray. Uddhav Thackeray son of Bal Thackeray and Raj Thackeray, son of Shrikant Thackeray.

Sitram Keshav Thackeray also known as Prabhodhankar Thackeray was a prominent leader in the formation of the state of Maharashtra during late 1950s. As per Raj Thackeray’s website he became a stringent critic of religious conformism and launched an attack on malpractices like tonsuring widows, untouchability and practice of dowry. He fought for people without giving a damn about their caste or religion. He would have never thought that his offspring would bring such a shame to his name.

Let’s take a look at all of them what they believe and what they do in the contemporary scenario. His son the infamous self proclaimed king of Maharashtra Mr. Balasaheb Thackeray is opposite to him in more than one manner. First of all is the formation of his party Shiv Sena, which is totally based on Hindutva, a religion. The base of the part is a religious discrimination and he and his men have done a variety of activities ranging from a igniting violence against the Muslims to encouraging Hindu Suicide bombers to dividing the people as per their castes. The agitations against South Indians, demanding money from Gujarati and Marwari businessmen and recently the fight against the North Indians. The latter is again a disputed territory with is very own nephew Raj Thackeray. Raj Thackeray the name has become synonymous to “Goondagardi” in the past two years or so in Mumbai. Threats, breaking glass windows of the buses and threatening the companies to use Marathi language in every work has become his fashion. This has helped in only creating a feeling of hatred divisions amongst the citizens towards a particular community.

I think both these uncle and nephew should take a look at their father and grandfather respectively and take a page out of his book about what is actual social responsibility and how to fight for the betterment for the society and not against it. Today both of them are fighting for the pride of Marathi Manoos and have totally forgotten what the real issues are. None of them have ever tried to provide a proper solution to Farmer’s suicide in Vidarbha, water scarcity almost throughout the state and lack of electricity becoming a grave threat worst day by day.

The aggressive brand of politics by these men has only brought disrepute to the state and the city and has just aggravated the problems instead of solving it. I hope people understand their selfish reasons and stop supporting them immediately.

I wish I could undo the Past

Rajesh is six yrs old. He goes to a decent school but doesn’t have many friends, the reason being his mother, Rekha. Yes his mother is in a profession which the society doesn’t accept, she is a bar dancer. As it happens she is not here by choice but fate.

She had lost her parents when she was just six, from then her uncle and aunt looked after her, but the love was never there and she was just treated as a liability. She had big ambitions to become a successful business developer and then start her own firm; she had joined a special management course from a reputed institute the completion of which would have guaranteed a placement and the finance for establishing one’s own business to the topper. In the initial days of her two year course there was a debate in which single handedly had outspoken the ‘self-proclaimed’ stud of the class Deepak. He felt insulted in front of the entire batch of students and he wanted to take revenge. Rekha had forgotten about the incident. Deepak was only second to Rekha in the class.

But after a while they became friends and very quickly close friends. Rekha shared everything with Deepak and so did he. Soon their friendship had turned into love. Deepak showered all the love on Rekha which she never got once her parents had passed away. She was almost addicted to him; she did as he told and sometimes as he ordered.

One and a half year had passed and they were in their last semester. Everyone was preparing hard to top the exams though no one had a realistic chance with Deepak and Rekha leading the way. But just as the semester started Rekha was pregnant, she told this to Deepak and Deepak was on the top of the world, he introduced her to his parents and told the truth. Somehow he convinced her to keep that child promising her to marry just as he will be 21, which was by the way after her delivery period.

As Rekha’s uncle came to know about this they told her to abort the baby but to no avail. After a heated argument Rekha left her place and started living at Deepak’s place with his parents. As soon as the college authorities came to know they warned her to abandon the baby or else they will suspend her. She sacrificed her studies thinking that Deepak will score the first rank and will get the opportunities and therefore she sacrificed everything without taking Deepak’s name in the matter. As a result she was suspended. Deepak on the other hand was the first rank holder of the class and got the placement for six months after which he would have got the finance to start his own firm.

Rekha now is a bar dancer and just manages to survive with her child. Rekha gave the birth to her child and named him Rajesh. Yes she is the only parent of the child as Deepak did not marry her and even refused to accept that it was their child, she had an option to abort the child but she didn’t took that easy option and gave the birth. She was already so defamed that no one was ready to give her a respectable job and she was forced to take this step to stay alive and bring up her child.

Deepak had just used her to be at the top. Yes it was not love but his plan. He stayed in Bangalore with his parents and just had come to Mumbai to study. Everything was fake, his love parents and every other thing just to take out revenge and be at the top. How can people be so cruel?

On the other hand Rekha had landed up in a bar and ruined her life. His child Rajesh who already is bullied by other children has an entire life of hell to go through. The girl who was an over ambitious human being and would always wanted to dream had landed up miserably in her real life.

A Revolution in the making.......

We all feel that we should stand against the wrong, but I and my friends group did this thing at Kanheri Caves located in National Park in Borivali, Mumbai where we had gone for an outing. To start with there was a new rule implemented that eatables were not allowed inside the caves, the obvious reason being littering of papers or waste food items. We knew that we are not gonna do that and the checking was also not very strict so we just told the person who was checking that we had empty Tiffin boxes. We went on the top of the hill and started having our lunch. We first spread the newspaper and then all the food items were kept on the paper or plastic bags.
Certainly a person came with a stick and shouted at us ‘yeh kya ho raha hai’ he meant what the hell was going on. Then in fraction of a second he came near us and started yelling at us that once we were informed that foodstuffs are not allowed inside then why were we having our lunch there. In no time an argument started and that person was treating us as if he owns our lives. The moment he gave a rude answer back to one of the girls of our group we were fired up and started arguing aggressively. Then he said that we would be needed to pay Rs 500 as a fine and took us down to the main entrance where the checking was going on.
On our way back we saw a child eating a piece of a chapatti and a man eating wafers, we then started shouting at him and now we also wanted to teach him a lesson and we took him down. The main person handling the situation was a bit more intelligent than this man and he handled the situation nicely. Neither he shouted at us nor did he talk about any fine. He just told us that they allow everybody with foodstuffs thinking people would not open it but then people open it and the entire purpose of disallowing eatable for cleanliness stands no meaning.
Then we went downstairs and had our lunch. Our blood was boiling regarding this whole matter and there was a huge debate and discussion regarding the entire episode during our lunch. The solutions that we came up in those healthy and aggressive tones were as follows –
1) Have a big board or a hoarding before the entrance which says “Eatables Disallowed”
2) Have a baggage counter where the visitors can safely keep their bags and go with coupon system, as the bags were kept openly in a haphazard manner, there was no guarantee that they would have been there till the time we return as there was no one looking after them.
3) The people should not be starved so have a canteen at the top of the canteen, but again that would not exactly solve the problem of cleanliness
4) Have dust bins on the hills and in the caves, which was suggested by one of my friends. But the person said that people kick the dustbins and throw it away, so it’s pointless
5) Have fixed iron dustbins which can’t be moved, but this is not possible he said without giving a proper reason, but personally I feel that won’t work as most people don’t bother to throw the garbage in the bin.
In this entire process we came up with these solutions but I don’t think anything is achievable till the authorities are interested in doing such things and till that time I think disallowing eatables is the best option.
As far as we were concerned, I agree that we were wrong but then there could have been a better way of saying it and we would have said him sorry out of guilt, but as you know people think that if they are in authority they need to show their power by curbing and insulting others, but that guy really had it from us and he would definitely remember before uttering a word against anyone.