Thursday, March 8, 2012

The economic divider!

All my life I have lived in many cities across India. Life, like a brook, has taken many twists, turns, swirls, leaps but has kept me afloat all this time. Every moment in life are instances of struggle and survival.
Opposites in English literature has always amused me. I remember how we used to cram them up in our Primary classes from our four lined English notebooks.

Opposites

small * big
tall * short
fat * thin
win * lose
rich * poor

Did I say amuse? I am not trying to get philosophical here, but something makes me think does this cut right definitions or rather opposites exist in life? For example, does my friend being tall mean I am short? Relativity says, I may be taller to some other friend of mine. Hence technically speaking I am neither tall nor short.

Does an athlete winning a race make the person coming second a loser? Or does it make the second athlete a winner compared to the person coming third? Not at all.
So there is nothing like winning or losing, isn't it? Life as people say has hardly got anything to do with winning and losing, so what is life? As I see it, it is a platform for staging various struggles where survival is the key. Now the big question is, can everybody become a survivor?

Management taught me something in negotiations. A Win-Win situation! For every scenario the parties sit across tables, discuss and come to a so-called solution which is a Winner for both! A very important discussion between two governments has come to a Win-Win resolution, as government and media quote. But to whom is this a win-win situation? For the people sitting across the table or for the millions who await such decisions? If it were for the people sitting across the table, then the answer to my earlier question as to "Can everybody be a survivor?" is a big NO!

So what is a Hypothetical situation? A Win-Win situation!!!

I started blogging here of me being a cosmopolitan. All cities are in one way or other interesting, but the most interesting one is where I live currently. Yup, Mumbai, the economic capital of India, the city of Bollywood and city of dreams for many. Huhhh! Yeh hai Mumbai meri jaan! This city interests me not because of what my fellow Mumbaikars boast about like "safe city for women", "lotta opportunities", "get to meet the stars" etc. What I am curious about this city is what they mean by economic prosperity and how this has shaped up in Mumbai?

I stay in a place called Bhandup, technically suburb, in a society that has about sixteen buildings, twenty floors each and four flats in each floor. You could say Posh!

Every morning I stand in my balcony and watch the other side of my flat. I see the rising sun, the ever busy Bhandup station, the chugging trains and beyond this railroad is the other side, where people stay in small huts or kuccha houses, grow Paalak(green and red spinach) in the land they have and sell the same in the evening in the market by the station road. Sunrise and sunset here is so beautiful, the lush green fields in the backdrop and the Spinach gardens glisten to the ever glowing sun! Mother Nature is so beautiful! That was Bhandup(east) for you!!

Bhandup (West) on the other hand where I stay is where people are better off, normally the buyers of the Spinach grown in the east. What I see is how a railroad has divided the whole city into East and West!

Bhandup(E) vs Bhandup (W)
Kurla(E) vs Kurla(W)
Vikhroli(E) vs Vikhroli (W)

Wooww! Am I seeing another amusing sets of Opposites here? Opposites in terms of economic conditions, standards of living or disparities? Ding Dong!!

Has one whole side of the city grown at the expense of the other? What is so attractive about the word West? Or is it the work of many filthy insecure bureaucrats who managed to borrow the so called Idiosyncrasy of the West along with gold loans? One never knows. The truth is nobody really wants to know. Survivors! Phew!!

And we just keep talking about more and more reservations and inclusive growth? How are these synonyms? Paradox! Paradox of a Paradoxical system!!

Thursday, February 23, 2012

The Resurrection Blog!

It has been more than a year that I have blogged. I have always found blogging as a platform to introspection of one's self. Apart from being an amateur blogger, I take interest in reading blogs of others too. People take to blogging in situations say when they have found a new lease of life. That is what Vidhya Dakshinamurthy, my very good friend expressed in hers as she shared her blogger address with me today.
For many it is their interest, Karthik Thiruvannamalai for eg., an excellent cricket blogger. The guy is very passionate about the game and the Indian team, not to forget. I wouldn't be surprised if Prateek Gupta, my friend from Amrita took to blogging about his photography. I have seen him maturing to become a pro in this art.
There is this section of bloggers who love to blog about what they dislike or what they are disturbed about. Blogging in a sense has become a company to solidarity. This has proved a way for them to vent their anger and frustration. These are usually socially sensitive people. Mr. Anup Menon, my super super senior from Amrita, an excellent blogger himslf and a voracious reader, loves to take a dig into the prevailing social issues or things that he dislikes like blaring loudspeakers. :)

What we can actually see here from all the above mentioned examples is that Blogs have become reflection of mind and heart of every blogger! For some it is what they are but for others it is what they aspire to be. This wonder 'Blog' can add feathers to one's aspiration, paint it all colors and lift the spirits!

And for many like me it is nothing but 'The Resurrection Blog' or the Phoenix!