#5 Days Of Our Lives

I still remember those childhood days when we used to wish that "Please God Somehow cut the power",and being in 90s our wish was successfully granted by state electricity board and the moment light went off, a melodious roar of children from each and every house sums up to thank god and also to tell their counterparts that it's time to play our famous and favourite game like luka-chupi & ice-water. In those days moonlight was sufficient enough to help u say dhappi...We knew every child within two three streets as we used to play tournaments of various games ranging from Pithu to Chain to Cricket and even Posam-Pa on Sunday.


Talking of Sunday.There used to be situation like curfew at 9 am when "Krishna" used to be aired.Personally, my sunday morning used to start with the sounds of songs from rangoli. You can't accuse me that I keep playing all day in the evening, as when our parents (by hook or crook) force us to study we used to read champak by hiding it under social science book. The smell of a newly bought books had always been a inspiration to study.



School were also dangerous those days especially on monday and wednesday when everyone has to come in white dress. Although that wasn't the scariest part the hard thing was to keep your white shoes clean,as the ones who didn't come with the clean one used to apply a layer of chalk on it.In those times we used to respect teacher so much that even a scolding by them used to bring tears in our eyes.
Those lunch sharing moments,and the feeling after getting an excellent in the test will always remain cherishable.

In those times, we always wanted to be sick,so that we can get more attention than our siblings.
Stealing sweets were our favourite past time along with collecting cards which came free with center fresh. Barter System existed in those times as u can get one comics in exchange of others.Maybe social networking was not present still we used to have more than 20 friends, who kept inviting us in their birthday parties.Talking of Birthday,they were not so costly in those times as you can celebrate it with a packet of Kismi Bar with an added privilege of going to school wearing a colorful dress with no headache of homework.

Those were the times when the only serious problems we used to face were, when our ball got stuck in some sewage line or on the verandah of an arch-rival Aunty and when we used to forget our H.W copy in class.

There are so many things which remind me of that indelible great era in which we spent our initial days and also provoke me to wonder that, whether those days were the Best?? or Best is yet to come?. The answer to this eternal question can never be found. But I sincerely wish that every child in coming generation will go through all these "Choti Choti Magar Moti Bate" and will interact with his friends in the parks instead of sticking to the quite addicting video games and social networking sites.

                                                                                                Gangeshwar Tripathi

#4 Be The Change You Want

Nowadays everybody especially people of my age group are busy gearing up for placement battle ahead, those who got one are aiming for better one.Considering the calibre of these people and the companies expectation, I firmly believe that every one will get a job offer despite of India's unemployment problems.

So the real battle in a person's life is not to just join a company rather it starts after joining it. The whole boss scenario,of which we have been trolling so far comes into picture.That's how your corporate life starts, where you face the challenge of differentiating yourself from others so as to make some impact on your boss. I have seen many of my seniors who joined the company with enormous zeal and enthusiasm, but slowly with time they got bored & frustrated. I talked with many of them and discovered that these people are frustrated since they are not getting enough credits for their work.They go on to say that in some cases even we have got more knowledge than our boss or project head or lead, still they face the heat if anything goes wrong. If you observe closely, you will find that many people quit their respective jobs and start putting their effort in other directions like civil services,or starting their own business due to this aforesaid reason. But majority of people continue their disappointing corporate life due to their own reasons.

Now a serious question arises, whether this approach of disapproving your boss is right??, Since you and your boss are different person the contradiction of thoughts will definitely occur, and since he is at the higher level he will be the person to take the final call. Therefore its your choice to whether support his decision or to oppose him. A wiser would go on supporting, but some people would differ because of their moral values and ego.It's a minuscule problem. The situation goes worse when your boss gives promotion to your colleague instead of you,who actually deserved it, and the only reason you could figure out is that both share a list of irrelevant activities like gossiping,drinking,smoking etc.

So what an honest,skilled employee should do? I still think the best way to deal with this problem is to communicate more with your boss,I will also suggest to bend your values and ideology to a certain extent, it might hurt your ego. But you will be promoted and that is the big thing,the thing that matters most at that point of time. 

When you reach at your destined position then re-evaluate your past situation and there might be chances that you will feel differently and may support your boss behavior and gladly if not, treat the person under you,the way you wanted yourself to be treated. That way you will rebuilt the Boss image and will save a debutante from the frustrating life you had to face.

All this may sound a bit filmy.But the key point is that we keep on cursing people who are above us.But when we get a chance to be at the same level, we keep all our ethics,moral values aside and start behaving in the same way as our predecessors.

Hence what we should really do is control and preserve our anger towards the practices,proceedings going in the societies and should bend ourselves to face it so that we can reach our destination and after getting there we can use that anger and determination to bring the change, we wanted in our very own society. 

For people like us(students),who take interest and have views on our cricket team as well as our current political scenario, we need to bring a change in us. We are the people who have the time to discuss all these things because as we will grow up, we will be absorbed in our work . It's our duty to find the flaws in the society and make a note of them and when we hold a position we should eradicate that flaw from our society.

It will make our society a better place day by day.

                                                                                                       Gangeshwar Tripathi

#3: India Beyond Bangladesh

I still remember that day,I was watching Baba Ramdev's protest at Ramleela Maidan when a friend of mine called in the eve to inform me that AIEEE results have been declared. Since a lot was at stake on that result, I quickly took my motorcycle to nearest internet cafe. Results were not good, I got gloomy AIR 22696. Now I had to decide, whether I should join a state engineering college or opt for NIT brand. The latter option means I should be ready to go the so called remote area of our country i.e either J&K or Northeast India. At that time I reluctantly opted NIT Agartala.

Since then I never feel that I am staying away from home unless I go to my hometown Bhopal, where I am treated like I am living outside this country.Everybody keeps asking that how you manage there, how frequently violence occur there and no matter how much I tell them that it is quite a nice and peaceful place, they console me with the sympathy that don't worry just survive four years and you will do well for the rest of your life. And this is not just the case of neighbours. This witless thinking prevails from Vodafone customer executive to training officer of NHDC, where I completed my summer training.

Today after spending about 4 years in this place, I realised why people think that northeast is not a good place to visit, it's unsafe there.It is because that these people don't have proper knowledge about this part of country.

Just to crosscheck my blunt views,just go to the main part of India and ask any educated person if he wants to go to Tripura(or any north eastern state) for his studies or business purpose and I am quite sure that most of them will say that it is too far and too risky to go there. Then you just hand him the map of India and ask him to locate any place of northeast,again I can assure you that sadly they will not be able to locate the position of seven states.

So what I have been trying to convey for so long is that the condition in these remote area is not so bad as we think. Actually the situation and people living here are satisfied than many of the people in metro city.This ignorance about northeast is not the problem of common people only but it is also the thinking of media and politicians.Few people know that Tripura has the highest literacy rate among all states in India, still they go on saying that people living in northeast don't know how to live as their food habits are a bit different.

People argue that the geographical features of North East are a big obstacle in developing this area. But for your information the current meter gauge railway track was built by Britishers in 1899. After that it took us 115 years to make a decision to upgrade it. Here arises the million dollar question why the whole mass including government,media person doesn't bother to even think about the people living here.Why a chain snatching case in Delhi is more highlighted then the rape case of Guwahati ??, Assam faces flood every year due to mighty Brahmaputra how many people know that?? Lets ask the capital of seven sister states,do you think the people who are living in mainland will be able to tell even two?
People also say that it is hard to reach in those places since there are no means of transport then I would give a big round of applause to the telecom and beverages companies because you can find their product in every place of northeast even where population density is lower then 100 person per sq km.

What I would request my reader that we live in an era where gaining information is quite easy, Before really making an opinion about a place make sure that you know it well. The beauty of northeast is not from any angle less alluring than that of places like Kashmir and Shimla.

I know there are some burning issues in Assam and other part of north east but it keep happening in every part of country,but just by saying incredible India and doing nothing for these people, we can't achieve the integrity.We need to make sure that these beautiful people living here never feel that they are being ignored.

Ending this note with a wish that someday Indians will change their perception towards northeast and will accept these lovely people instead of calling them chinese & nepalese. As in northeast alone about 220 languages are spoken with about half of the floura and fauna variation found in our country comes from this place. It is even said that the fashion sense in Shillong is 10 years ahead of our bollywood,and who can forget the contribution of "Gorkha regiment" in all the wars India have been ever engaged in.Considering all these facts I think we need North East part of our country to be on same level as rest of the country so that we can move forward as "INCREDIBLE INDIA".

                                                                                                            

                                                                                          Gangeshwar Tripathi

#2 Being Ethical

Whenever a child leaves his home for the first time,most of the parents hand their wards a do's and don'ts list. Also when you are just about to leave your father will call you to give you his blessings and will utter a simple line"Never do anything which will bring bad name to our family" or we can say in short that do your work with honesty.

This same incident also happened with me and at that time i easily said yes father don't worry about it,have trust in me.Now after studying four year of engineering. Yesterday one of my friend Mr Arun suggested me to be ethical always.After that moment I did a self evaluation to find how honest,ethical,dedicated i am?
To my surprise i found myself a very honest person as i never did anything intentionally to hurt anyone,but at the same time when i look at it from other person perspective i find myself guilty in many occasions.So there arises a complication that what is the line which decides what is good & what is bad,up to how much level u can bend your values to make yourself suitable for the society.

People and books says that you should never do such things which will harm even one person in this world, and i totally agree with that but what about those cases in which the person committing crime doesn't know about the effect of his work. let me clarify my views with e.g of a person selling pirated cd's or a marketing person telling lie about his products. Are these unethical??

If we think they are unethical then take a close look and what you will find that they are just doing their work with full honesty. So what makes them a sinner?? Is it the fault they commit by choosing their respective jobs even in that case if they haven't opted for that job someone else would have gladly taken that job in a world full of unemployed peoples. If you are thinking of switching your views by going back and blaming those companies whose employee does that, sorry to say but in my opinion again you are wrong because they are MNCs they face a stiff competition from their rivals.
So whom we should blame, since something illegal,unethical has been done so someone should be judged responsible for that.Isn't it??

Lets come to reality now,all we were discussing earlier was theoretical. In practical world it's the values and the upbringing of a man that decides what is unethical for a person i.e if a orphan hungry child steals packet of bread from a shop it is not a sin but a clerk in government office even accepting a single penny in exchange of his service is unethical.This is how we should judge a person and should give them penalty, but unfortunately in this world almost all law follow a book in which those theoretical methods are applied to determine the level of crime.
This situation provoke me to wonder sometime that whether the monarchy system was better than nowadays democratic one. In those times the judge(King) declares his decision after understanding the thrust that inspired the person to that particular illegal act rather then just applying Indian Penal Code section 378 etc....

Well that is the problem at high level, we as person can't change it. But as a honest citizen of India we should ensure that we scrutinize our every work once in a day and make sure that whatever we do, we do it in the best interest of our family and the whole mankind.
                                                                                                Gangeshwar Tripathi

#1 Changing generations, changing rituals

Sometimes there comes a times when you feel that the old philosophy for which you have been arguing with others for so long doesn't hold true now.

Today was like one of that time of mine, Every thing started good as like on every year Duga Puja, I went to Agartala city to explore the streets full of positive vibes with dozens of people looking happy, from owner of Sherowali to a road side vendor everyone was looking at ease. After seeing those highly decorated pandals,I thought that how they got those money...or isn't it better to do charity with this amount of money rather then spending it lavishly on Navaratri celebration.

But there is a whole new way of looking at this particular issue on which most of the modern people go along with my latter view. If you will closely observe the population of Agartala you will feel how much Durga Puja mean to these people and to be frank half of this anticipation comes because of that decoration thing.

It doesn't only appeal to the rich ones...but the poor ones also cherish these moments as this is the only time they can roam in the streets full of lights,sounds,decoration and most importantly prasad. This is the only time of year when they can entertain themselves since this is the only free of cost live show available to them.It is also the time when these small vendors earns the max profit.

The whole conversation reminded me of the post on facebook on which someone wrote that nowadays these rituals and festival are modernized noisy and they don't serve the old purpose of giving peace and at that time i also agreed to certain extent that yes nowadays the people coming in these festival are not interested in the worship and even many are atheist. But now i realise that these are the people who have found a different way of handling their lives. Gone are the days when people find solace and peace in the picturesque temples with pin drop silence. We are in 21st century and mentality of people has been drastically changed. So what everyone should ensure that everyone has their own way of living may be right,may be wrong. So never make a pillar strong opinion and be a bit flexible about your views, it is always good to know the pros and cons of every thing.And it is very simple thing to do that as in our mind there is a little part which try to oppose our every move, most of the people just put that part in sleep mode but according to my views let that part speak..argue with your selves because in this way you may take time in taking decision but the decision that comes out finally will be a distilled and effective one.

Shubho Nabaratri...