SECOND LETTER TO PRIME MINISTER FROM TYPICAL MOUSE FROM MUMBAI

I got this as forwarded email, and I thought I shall be publishing it. I dont know the writer, but I think, he won't mind me putting it here... :-)
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SECOND LETTER TO PRIME MINISTER FROM TYPICAL MOUSE FROM MUMBAI
20th April 2009

Dear Prime minister
Hello from typical mouse from Mumbai. Soon Mumbaikars will be going for vote. I would like to remind you what has happened in Mumbai during last five years.
During last election you had promised that Mumbai will be made like Shanghai. Next time when your plane lands in Mumbai please see for yourself which part of Mumbai looks like Shanghai. Half the Mumbai is filled with slums, exactly like what is shown in SLUMDOGS. Even dogs will not like to stay there, but we human beings have no choice.
Remaining half of Mumbai is occupied by multistory concrete jungle. Your former chief minister went on increasing FSI, collecting money from builders and pumping back to Delhi to fight election. No wonder your party gave maximum advertisement in media so people can see the good work done by your government which is not visible to ordinary citizen.
During last five years price of houses has increased three times and ordinary Mumbaikar can not even dream of having his own house in Mumbai. Thirty percent of money is paid in black, which is distributed among politician, bureaucrats and underworld. When more than 30000rupees are withdrawn from bank, it is to be informed. Nobody informs you about crores or rupees which are being paid as black money.
This reminds me of black money in Swiss banks. When Mr. Obama becameUS president he did not request, nor pleaded with Swiss banks. He simply filed a suit against Swiss banks for luring rich people to open Swiss bank account to evade taxation. Within a week banks were forced to pay fine of Rs 700 million dollars that is rupees 3500 Crore. They even disclosed names of 300 account holders. During your regime not a single paisa has been recovered not a single name has been disclosed. By the time some action is taken all the money will disappear and the only name of dead person will remain.
Fifteen years have passed when hundreds of people died in Mumbai bomb blast. Main conspirator Dawood is not only at large but still calling shots. Whether it is Gutka king or a builder or a Bollwood producer, each one of them pays him protection money. Same money is pumped back as bullet in the chest of people, poor police and soldiers. We feel as much secure as a mouse in presence of a cat. Today cricket matches are shifted to South Africa for security reason, why not shift parliament to London?
During Munich Olympics, Israel team was massacred. Within one year each one of attacker was done to death. We dare not touch Dawood.Former Prime minister Charan singh had described politician as eunuch. I will not use such words. Why insult eunuchs by comparing them with politicians?
November attack in Mumbai is still fresh in my mind. This was a wake up call. Your trusted friend Mr Sharad Pawar replaced one of the most honest ministers R R Patil with Mr Chagan Bhujbal about whose honesty, there cannot be two opinions. He is dishonest. He is person who made pimp out of most efficient Mumbai police force.
Last August I had gone to PriyaDarshini park near my place. There were youths from villages who had gathered there to give fitness exam for enrollment in police force. I asked one of them “Don’t you have to pay bribe to get selected” his reply was “At the time of Bhujbal we had to do it, but after R.R.Patil has became home minister it has stopped. “A villager boy knows all this, either Mr. Pawar is unaware of this or he likes to play cruel jokes.
Just before three days former chief minister Sushilkumar Shinde said “we chief ministers are just Ji Hajoors of Congress high command.” Reason for mushrooming of small parties is that local Congress leaders are like underwear which can be replaced any time.
Congress high command has only one commander and loyalty to commander supersedes loyalty to motherland. Even the most incompetent person like Mr Shivraj Patil was kept as home minister of country till he became a huge liability. Most talented president was discontinued and replaced by Pratibha DEVISINGH Patil just because commander wanted to give gift of first woman president to country. Person like Ms. Kiran Bedi would have been the best choice but even Mr Pawar who was kick-commander who became lick-commander wanted only politician to become president.
With the weakening of major political party even the poor billionaire farmer like Dev Gowda are coming back to life to serve the people. Every Tom, Dick & Harry wants to become prime minister since that is the only way to serve the nation. As soon as election results are out, donkeys will be trading horses.
Congress party who ruled country for maximum number of years has made greatest promise of bribing millions with 3 rupees rice, for those unfortunate millions surviving is the greatest luxury of life.
Last but not the least, Yesterday that is on 20 th April 2009 you said in Guwahati that ‘AS OF NOW’ nuclear weapons of Pakistan are in safehand. Mark your world ‘AS OF NOW’ so you are not sure what will happen tomorrow or whether there will be any tomorrow? Your assurance that our future is in safe hands of Congress is as much assuring as word of prostitute that she is virgin.
Some time Mr. Prime minister I wonder why I am writing all this? What purpose it will serve? But then I cannot forget faces of thousands of youngsters who had gathered at Gate way of India after the Mumbai attack. They all were against politicians. They were all chanting “HUM HONGE KAMYAB” I might be a little typical mouse but I will never be a rubber stamp, at least I will squeak. Thanking you.

Typical Mouse from Mumbai
Prakash B. Bajaj
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Inspirations galore

Today morning when I was all bored and lazy after the breakfast… I switched on the TV… and my favorite movies channels were delivering their dose of entertainment… I hooked on ZStudio showing U Turn. As I knew from my previous knowledge that it has JLo in it, I decided to stop for a while… and then got totally engrossed in it.
It’s about one small time conman. Its about he meeting accident, getting robbed his boss’s money and then get stranded in remote town called Superior, full with whacky characters like an estate agent who wants to get his wife killed, Sheriff with an agenda, cranky car-mechanic, the over-possessive boy whose girlfriend keep on hitting on every man around, etc etc… The drama unfolded over the day, it’s a story happening in this small town over a day and its racy and fast… with lot more darker side to be revealed later…
But suddenly it struck me, I have seen some part of it… but where? I was trying to scratch my grays, nopes I couldn’t coz I was wearing my skull… :-P … then after few more sequences I watched, I could make out that its been copy of some hindi half-baked movie called ‘Musafir’ starring Sanjay Dutt, Anil Kapur, one of the Reddy sisters, with Koena Mitra dancing to the tune of Saaki saaki and then getting killed… remember that crap… it’s the same one, I am talking about… and it was other way round, our bollywood bosses were a greatly inspired lot… of course the Indian version was much more mellowed down than the original and lot more Indianised, and that’s why it was so bad... as I said…
Lot more to come as I proceed through the day watching some more movies…
Late last night I watched one very fine movie called 'Greatest Game Ever Played'... :-)

Their side of the story…

I happened to meet mother of this one, Mr Khade, on Sunday… as the construction work is still not complete and I was not able to shift into this apartment. I went there to see the progress myself and called the estate broker to take care of the matter. She got the this old lady happened to be his mom.

While talking to me, she also asked me my name and then she told me that she (and possibly her son too) had mistaken me by the caste which they belong to. They themselves are Namdeo Shimpi by caste, and they thought my surname resembles to their caste so she asked. That made me think about the whole incident in different way. And all my anger and depression also about the incident reported in the blog below seemed pretty much mis-placed.

After getting known this, I guess, I need to give some benefit of doubt to the Khade family and forget whole incident.

But as many of friends had already read and called or mailed or scrapped me their comments and shown surprise about this incident, I guess, writing this side of the story also carries same, if not more, importance…

Shocking experience…

After lot of contemplation, I decided to write about this incident… After lot of bad experiences people tell me about the people of Pune, I used to be un-perturbed about being in this city and staying here. But finally it hit me too… and sadly, I felt really really bad about it…

I was searching for the apartment to shift into as my current place is not very suitable for married couple and simply coz the land-lords wants the place to be rented to single working bachelors for the least problems, so be it. Finally I found OK kinda place, which is pretty costly per say, but very well located, close from all the well known land-marks. Bang on the Karve Road. I couldn’t be happier, but then this bad experience was written in my destiny to happen, to open my eyes may be…

The apartment is under repair, due to leakage of sewage into the flat below mine. So the keys were lying over with one Mr Khade, who owns the flat on the downstairs. When the estate agent told me to get the keys from him to visit my place, I decided to go there directly. Of course being thorough un-professional, agent have not informed this guy and he was not expecting me.

When I reached his place, it was past 9pm in the evening. I rang the bell and the door opened. I introduced myself and told that I am supposed to collect the key for the flat upstairs. He said, he didn’t knew that I will come, but still he will give the keys as it doesn’t matter to him anyways.

While someone in the house went inside to collect the keys, this person asked me my name, if u know Pune style of asking name, they ask you your surname. As that’s what they are more interested in, to know your caste, and possibly judge you based on that. When I told my full name to him, he was blunt enough to ask me, if I am shimpi (Taylor) by caste since he could not make out my caste from my surname. I said NO, trying to avoid the direct attack, even though I am not shy of what I am. He was adamant enough on knowing my caste, so without batting an eyelid, he asked me, “then?”. After seeing his persistence, I gave up and told him that I am Patil (Kshatriya for those who don’t know exactly marathi castes). After satisfying his curiousity only, he handed over the keys to me, only to remind me that I had to return them as work is still remaining.

This may be really small incident, but had left pretty bad scar on my psyche. On one side, we are all the way drumming trumpets about India and its proposed super-power status and all… and at the ground level, even in the big, good(?), great(sic), so called cosmopolitan cities we are still thinking about the caste of the person.

This is the eye-opening incident for me, and I felt so sorry that I didn’t paid attention to the cautionary tales of many of my friends about this city. Also this seems to have hardened my resolve to DO SOMETHING about my life and many other things… I just hope that someone special in my life, who loves this country so much will change her approach about it, and give a thought to what I had always maintained with her…

p.s. Names and incident in this post had been kept un-changed to keep the identity of people un-hidden...

StarCare and Hero Project...

Recently, I had been watching these couple of ads about the HIV/AIDS awareness program.

Scene I:
Some trial is going on in the Court, and the judge asks the prosecutor to speak loudly, then he went on to asking questions to the guy in the kathghara, about where he was on the fateful night? Number of cars in parking lot? Their numbers? And finally were the cars petrol or diesel?
The guy retort back, “yeh to bahut specific ho gaya na?”

And the catchline comes, "sawal kitna bhi specific kyon n’ ho, agar HIV/AIDS ke bare mein hai to call karein ya likhe…”

Scene II:
Mantri-ji sitting in a studio, answering the questions asked by aam junta, live on TV… one guy ask about the quantitative analysis of the progressive work done, number of kms roads had been constructed, and then another fellow after telling the exact number of water taps in the neighbourhood, tells that so and so taps gets water and when the others will get it too?? Then Neta-ji while soaking in the sweat (sweating in AC is big deal) says, “yeh to bahut specific ho gaya na?”

And the catchline comes, "sawal kitna bhi specific kyon n’ ho, agar HIV/AIDS ke bare mein hai to call karein ya likhe…”

After watching this advts, it really gives a feeling that people now a days think really well before they make and air the ad… It’s a really good campaign according to me, someone putting so much effort for the social cause is very encouraging site.

Skoda 'Quality obsession' ad...

One of my most fav print advt is Skoda… may be coz I m smitten by that machine…

This is almost 4 years old campaign, when they were new in the market and being taunted by competition as failure marketing strategy and all, as they entered in the market with big car and not some small, 2 box, power-starved, economical, middle class oriented (sic), tin ka dibba…

Ok, so the ad… it was quarter-page ad, showing a picture taken of the front wheel of the car with some side panel and front bumpers and headlights. I was wondering what’s the thing they want to highlight? On reading it I came to know that it’s was about the tire nut. So what’s the big deal, every car has them. I read on…

The ad read as follows:
This tire nut is obviously not the most critical component of the car assembly.
So it has gone through only 84 different tests.
Think of quality obsession, think of Skoda.
Think of quality obsession, think of Skoda.
Think of quality obsession, think of Skoda.
Think of quality obsession, think of Skoda.

Mind you, they have that unique way of emphasizing on ‘quality obsession’ by just writing the same line 4 times, in normal font and format.
Awesome ad, it made place in my mind forever it seems.

about series of new posts...

I was thinking about this for long... that I shall write some series of blogs based on Advertisements, may be TV or Print...

So i guess, from here onwards few of my blogs will be dedicated to my take on various ads we see all around....

hope u will also like reading about them, as i will enjoy writing them...

Thats why I love this guy…

Just now in the morning I read in the newspapers that Pete Sampras, my all time fav tennis player, owner of 14 Grand Slam titles, completed a winning return to competitive tennis on Sunday with a victory in the Champions Cup of Boston, part of the Champions Series for former ATP stars.

Sampras rallied to beat Todd Martin 6-3, 5-7, 11-9 in the final.
Sampras, 35, dropped his first set of the tournament and trailed 9-6 in the first-to-10 tiebreaker before rallying. He closed the match on his serve when Martin hit a return shot long.

The kind of consistency and concentration this guy had shown on court was always superb, being while he was on the top of the ATP ranking and reigning Champ, or even now after he is retired for over 4 years.

Hats off to u 'pistol' Pete… u rock!!!

Time has come to think about it…

I was following closely the developments happening in the directions of scrapping ULCRA. For the uninitiated ones, it’s Urban Land Ceiling and Regulation Act. Now what’s this? It’s the act/law which stops people who have excessive quantity of land to sale it for development.

As over last one and half year, the rates of real estate have crossed all the limits in Pune, the middle class is bearing the brunt of the situation. The so called growth is so obscene that every piece of $hit apartment had started costing at least twice that its worth.

Then came the news that Chief Minister of Maharashtra is going to put the resolution in current assembly session to scrap this act. Now don’t think that its b’coz that he cares for the people or something, but that’s the directive/condition by Central Govt. to release some kinda aid for the state. But whatever may be the reason, it might had provided some respite to the so-called aam aadmi.

But then came the news that some political party had urged the CM on the behest of, u know who, to postpone the scrapping. Also they told him that lets talk about this in next session of assembly and not now. The reason was, many builders and developers (not poor us, but the other kindred) has invested lot of money in land and the real estate. If this law is scrapped now, then they will suffer heavy losses. This was really astonishing to mere mortal like me and I was just loss of words to explain my anger about such a move. Also this makes it very clear that where the loyalties of those, whoever is talking about public welfare, actually lie.

Now the people of urban Maharashtra have to wait for 3 more months to get this happen, and hopefully at least then it shall happen.

Is it coming back to normal…

I spent last weekend in Delhi for a wedding of my very close IITD pal. The wedding was lovely, beautiful and great fun.

It was great fun to catch up with the old pals… but saying this was just a metaphor as we never missed the touch with each other… we are very densely connected to each other… but still meeting in person still has its charm.

Delhi/Gurgaon were simmering at 40 degrees those two days and I was literally getting dehydrated. But I know that’s temporary as I will be headed back to ‘comparatively’ cooler Pune, which I call my home now…

As my flight was preparing to land in Pune…the pilot announced that the day is bright and sunny in Pune with temperature 40 degrees. I was taken aback, its 4pm in afternoon and I was expecting some relief from heat, especially if I am coming back from NCR…

Got down, got Auto-Rickshaw for myself and I headed back to home, and then it happened… I got caught in the thunderstorm, not that I m complaining, it was great fun and whole atmosphere was dark, cloudy, moist, wet, and chilled…

I instantly remembered my old days in Pune which I spent as undergrad student. Then also, Pune used to sizzle in summers, but only till certain extent and then the un-timely thunderstorm with heavy rain will come and make the whole city drenched and chilled at least for next few weeks…and then again the temperatures will start rising to reach some level and again the thunderstorm… this used to continue almost whole summer…

But this has stopped for last few years, when the growth of the city started, number of vehicles increased on the road, increasing the heat generated, tree cut down to widen the road and build the concrete jungle where so-called working professionals (like us) can live, etc etc. Due to all this Pune started getting hotter and hotter.

So now I was wondering, if the olden phenomenon of thunderstorms has returned to Pune for good, or it’s just another effect of widely acclaimed adversary ‘Global Warming’…