Wandering Mind

Mind wanders all the time- even in the thick of thoughts- new thoughts enter with the speed of a Formula 1 car and disrupt the flow of thoughts and overtake the original track .Maybe I am sounding paranoid ,but am sure people will understand .

Was watching the Salman Khan starer 'Jai Ho ' released a few months ago- not for the Salman type bashing of goondas or his surreal stunts , but for the thought espoused in the film.

'You help someone and then instead of a 'Thank You ' - you ask them to help three other persons .The multi-level marketing schemes everywhere work on similar lines.

Supposing you help someone, without any selfish motive- and do not even expect anything in return- What guarantee you have that someone will acknowledge it and take the idea further. Most of the time people wallow in the sympathy of others.You may call it love- sympathy-empathy anything but the real reason reason is to make the helper a ladder to climb to some milestone. They absorb the good deed like a blood-sucker leach absorbs blood from your body and when satiated, leave you high and dry

Except in movies- it does not happen. Most of the time you are laughed at and ridiculed. for such naivete

The only unconditional unselfish love- I have seen is what parents- let me quantify it- " Mother" has for the children. There is no parallel to it. Rest all the things we do for others under the guise of a selfless act is an utterly selfish act with some hidden motive. We may be able to camouflage it cleverly, but deep inside us we know that there is an ulterior motive for it.However can we blame it on the benefactor ,when the beneficiary is sure to follow the leach path.

I recollect a song from the 1961 film 'Hum Dono' starring Dev Anand-Sadhana and Nanda.. The lyrics of Sahir so poignantly put the thoughts in the right perspective- particularly the third verse. Listen to the song== Kabhi khud pe kabhi halat pe rona aaya. I quote the last verse---

kaun rota hai kisi aur ki khatir ai dost
kaun rota hai kisi aur ki khatir ai dost
sabko apni hi kisi baat pe rona aaya
sabko apni hi kisi baat pe rona aaya.

Here is the song-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GocQLkVQl5Y

HUM DONO (1961) - Kabhi Khud Pe Kabhi Halaat Pe Rona Aaya.avi.flv

Movie- Hum Dono Song- Abhi na jaao chhodkar ke dil abhi bhara nahin Starring- Dev Anand, Sadhana

YOUTUBE.COM

Dilip Apte

September 21 ,2014

Doomsday

Doomsday

" The Third Curve "-a book by Mansoor Khan

It has not yet sunk

 An honest appraisal of the Global Oil Situation- predicting the doomsday scenario backed by facts and figures ,unlike the Nostradamus predictions- a few centuries ago , which may or may not be accurate.

Each and every concerned human being in the world needs to read , sorry study this book. It takes time to even read it, as fact after fact unfolds before you, you feel the urge to go over it again and again, pinch yourself to ascertain whether what you had read is real or surreal .

It took me 24 days to read the 200 odd pages back to back . Normally I finish that many in a day . Not this.

It directly does not concern any of us today . But yes our grandchildren will start facing the crunch and before long ,we may have to go back to the days , when  there was no OIL No plastic , no bitumen , no pharma products , no gas and No No many other things- directly dependent on Oil.

Your grandchildren in their prime may very well see the petrol prices touching 100 $ per litre and  - to make it short., their grandchildren may perhaps even be deprived the   use of a Car

What took more than a quarter billion years for nature to produce, we are going to exhaust in less than 150 years.

The Bell Curve is already on the descending  and will reach its nadir in no time .

When all the mountains are flattened, there won't be any Coal too, available for our needs

We can't do anything about it except rue the fact that we are all cumulatively responsible for it

Oh yes we sure did modernize at an alarming speed in the last one century-. Invented and discovered , performed impossible task, grew exponentially and with that same mesmerizing speed- we are going downhill at battle speed .

Our own greed for progress and more progress ,profits and more profits- made us create a maze of fabricated lies . We fudged growth , to show how well we understood the situation.We manufactured figures by finding new accounting paradigms , to convince ourselves that this is the only way to progress.

I salute Mansoor Khan for painstakingly gathering all facts and figures and putting them together for simple people like me to decipher the painful truth.

Mansoor Khan , never knew that he was such a multi-faceted personality. An I I T -Bombay , alumni , who went on to do his Masters at  Cornell & M I T - U S A  and who also  has incidentally produced and directed 2 commercially successful movies- 1] Qayamat se Qayamat Tak and 2] Jo Jeeta Wohi Siknadar.

Kudos Mansoor Khan- take a bow

Dilip Apte

September 14 , 2014

The Legal drinking age

     The Legal Drinking Age

Can someone more knowledgeable answer my simple question. Is it possible to distinguish, whether the alcohol content in the body is a result of consuming-1]Wine; 2] Beer or 3] Other Hard Liquor. The reason for asking this question is that Government of Maharashtra raised the drinking age to 25 , although persons above 21 can have wine- as wine contains negligible alcohol (according to reports in the newspapers).

Hence can a person below 25, who has consumed hard drinks- get away by saying that he has drunk wine. Am I correct in assuming that on quite a number of occasions a person gets tipsy by consuming wine. Will this not help people get away when caught after an accident and more importantly does it not open a new avenue of corruption?

Take for example a scenario- where an inebriated boy of 22, while driving commits a serious accident. He is not allowed to consume hard liquor by law- but can consume Wine As far as my sparrow -brained grey cells go- the alcohol is indistinguishable . So the boy can manipulate the system - of course with the connivance of the police, to his advantage and get away with a lighter sentence.

What is the merit in enacting such an infructuous law- which will help drunk people get away and the law enforcement arm indulge in rampant corruption.

The Legal Drinking Age for any kind of Alcoholic Drink should be 21 and no ifs and buts . The persons indulging in a drinking spree should although exercise restraint and social responsibility.

Dilip Apte
June 2 ,2011

Mera Bharat Mahan

Mera Bharat Mahan

till remain inaccessible to the common man. These cannot be Prime Minister Candidates, for that you need a Rahul Gandhi.

In the same vein but on a different platform- there are mass popular leaders like Bal Thacekrey or Raj Thackeray- who can gauze the pulse of the public and influence their opinion. The same thing cannot be said about UddhavThackeray- he may be popular but cannot win any popularity contest against the above two.

Sonia Gandhi or Sushama Swaraj or Bimla Karat have the sensitivity to listen to the laity bu they lack the Charisma of Rajiv Gandhi or Atal Bihari Vajpayee or Somnath Chaterjee respectively.
So what do we do- My friends Beggars are not Choosers. We have to make do with the leaders thrust on us like the Laloos and Mulayams-Yedurappas and Jagan Reddys- the Sharad Pawars and the Kalamadis- the Mehbooba Muftis and Abdullas. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari we lack leaders with credibility.
Let the young educated brigade following Anna Hazare and loving the country- vow to change this entire scenario-disband the corrupt old guard and make this country on par with Denmark and New Zealand and Finland and Sweden . The country will not be MAHAN by uttering Mera Bharat mahan, but each one of us striving to make it so.

 Thanks

Dilip Apte
April 24 ,2011

Psychology

Psychology
This is a brief note on Psychology
If you start with a cage containing five monkeys and, inside the cage, hang a banana on a string from the top and then you place a set of stairs under the banana, before long a monkey will go to the stairs and climb toward the banana.
cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with same result .... all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put the cold water away. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and attempts to climb the stairs. To his shock, all of the other monkeys beat the crap out of him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys, replacing it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment... with enthusiasm.
Then, replace a third original monkey with a new one, followed by a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs. Neither do they know why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.
Finally, having replaced all of the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys will have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, none of the monkeys will try to climb the stairway to the banana.
Why, you ask? Because in their minds .... that is the way it has always been.
This is how Politics operates .... and is why, from time to time, ALL OF THE MONKEYS NEED TO BE REPLACED AT THE SAME TIME!
Dilip Apte

July 26 , 2011

The Anti-Corruption- Movement

The Anti Corruption Movement

 Watching on TV these young lads giving all out support to
 Anna Hazare's movement against corruption gave me courage
haps a decade to reach the non-corrupt standards of Denmark or New Zealand, but it can be done nevertheless. An old English adage aptly says that

 " Charity begins at home."
We have to imbibe the following in our system:
1] Vow that you will not pay any money to a traffic personnel for breaking the signal. If you break the signal- you will pay the fine.
2] Vow that You will not pay any municipal employee any money to regularize your illegal renovation, meaning you will not indulge in any illegal renovation
3] Vow that You will not work for any person who indulges in corruption in any field.
4] Vow that You will follow the law of the land all thetime- whatever the hardships.
5] Vow that- come what may You or you by proxy will not indulge in corruption of any kind.
6] Vow that You will not pay any money in black or accept any black money- whenever you purchase or sell any property.
7)Vow that You will not compromise with any Statutory Tax Authorities like Income-Tax, Sales Tax, Excise etc. to reduce your tax liability payment in exchange of bribe.
8) Vow that You will not encourage touts for Railway Tickets, Court Matters etc.
9) Vow that You will Tell the person coming to ask you for your vote during any election to underwrite a bond of not indulging in corrupt practices
10)Vow that You will always strive to be a model for others.
If we as citizens of India decide not to indulge in and encourage corruption of any sort, we have a moral right toask others to refrain from doing so.
The way Anna Hazare is gaining support from all quarters, I am sure that this movement will see a logical & successful culmination. But for that to happen, each one of us has to introspect and solemnly affirm that we wil abide by this basic ground rules.
Dilip Apte
9869437292
>dilipapte@yahoo.com >
May 31 ,2011

Anant Chaturdashi

Anant Chaturdashi--

The last Ganpati Immersion Day

I am bracing for the evening and dreading it .

Why did I rent a place on a main road where from all the Ganpatis from Mumbai [ it seems like that ] pass.

Well I don't mind the procession per say if it is organized like the one in Pune , where tradition is paramount .We Mumbaikars may smirk at them, but have to accept ,the discipline followed .

In Mumbai, the immersion is accompanied by shrill cacophonous noise . There is an unholy competition among each immersion procession group as to who is the loudest . Wonder [if I cannot tolerate this noise for a few hours ] how this Elephant God, having the biggest ears, does it for the entire duration of his stay.

And then he is ready to accede to their request, to come again the next year.

Last year , it was the lungi dance , the most horrific lyrics set to the most horrific tune by some insane composer and surely sung by people having nothing to do with  playback singing.

Mind well the Ganpati's were from different Mandals [ area-wise groups of people coming together ] ,the decor of each  processions differed , the dancers [ should I qualify them ] were different- but all had a common theme song- Lungi Dance .

It was akin to the entire nation singing our National Anthem in tandem .

Seems like Lungi dance was the National anthem of the Ganpati processions last year .

Which song would it be this year !!.-  am sure it would be an equally horrific,   obnoxious ,inhuman  moronic lyrical outburst ,set to tune by some insane composer and which has nothing to either do anything with music or more prudently the Ganpati festival.

Every year ,I think of going away to some quiet place during this day and of course the 10 days of the Navratri festival ,but I am stuck , due to extraneous circumstances beyond my control.

I am waiting with bated breath for the evening

Oh how I dread this day

Dilip Apte

September 8 , 2014

History in the Making

History in the making--I witnessed it today-

Unprecedented  and unimaginable response from the participating students. This never heard of exercise, covering the entire country, was never attempted, Forget about attempting - it was never even thought of by anyone .

Does this one gesture not make Narendra Modi stand out differently.

Of course, most of the students asking the questions were from English speaking urban schools, though there were students from Dantewada, Chhatisgarh- quite a backward area and they asked the right question.

I appreciated his concern for hygiene- the lack of toilet facilities in schools, which surely is a deterrent for girls in attending schools . He emphasized the need to answer this at the earliest.Quite a challenging step but one of top priority.

Each and every question was answered, peppered with anecdotes from his own childhood . Am sure the children must have instantly connected to that.

He suggested measures to students on how to save power ,cajoled them into participating in the nation building process .Baby steps ,small measures which when totaled, would surely become an Ocean.

I instantly connected with him, when he initated the idea of reading and while giving an example, told them that some are in the habit of reading what is written on the printed paper in which the eatable parcel is wrapped. Most won't relate to it today, as they are used to eating in plates and with  spoons. But I recollect vividly that I had that habit in my childhood. The love for reading was so all-consuming that whenever I ate bhel or brought pav [bread ] wrapped into some paper or for that matter any parcel wrapped in some printed material , I used to read, the written matter and this practice continued for quite a long time, perhaps until ,the packing method was changed.

In the past, Nehru was touted to be in love with children and many a photographs of his interaction with the children were published .Maybe his love sprang from his devotion to his own grandchildren, but it was evident in the published photographs, just  as his taste for good life was evident in the photograph ,where he joined Edwina Mountbatten in cigarette smoking.

Narendra Modi- for all practical purposes has led a celibate life. Hence his love and affection towards children seemed all the more to be authentic but a  big surprise.

Am sure his critics are going to call this a pure publicity stunt, but then why did Manmohan Singh or the short term sleepy Deve Gowda or Inder Gujral or V P Singh never undertake such an exercise. Did not mention Chandrashekhar or Gulzarilal Nanda because they were- blink and you miss Prime Ministers. Poor Lal Bahadur Shastri ,was so busy with the war that he must have hardly had time to interact. Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, am sure did some photo-op with children . But this was unprecedented.

I don't know if all this exercise was a publicity gimmick by the government. Even if it was- I welcome it and more such informal interactions of the Prime Minister with different groups.

Bravo Narendra Modi- keep it up .You have the attention of the nation

Dilip Apte

September 5 , 2014

Political hullabaloo

Four centuries ago, none in India spoke English. Three centuries ago when the British started spreading their tentacles-  our people started learning the language. We  learnt it better in the ensuing years- more for our survival than the love of the language.

Since eons , Sanskrit has been spoken and learnt in India. In fact it was the language used as medium of correspondence  and people all over the world still continue to study it .

The great Dr. Ambedkar had recommended ,Sanskrit to be made the official language post independence. Nehru with his colonial hangup  refused it.

Dr.Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, was the second President of India and a great scholar of comparative religion and philosophy. He was also the recipient of the highest civilian honour 'Bharat Ratna'.

September 5 ,his birthday is thus celebrated in India as 'Teachers Day ' or in vernacular 'Shikshak Din'. The teacher has always been revered in India as a 'Guru'. The person who guides the pupil to enlightenment, to higher tiers in life.

Sanskrit is the language used in all Temples across India, including Tamilnadu . By tradition the word 'Guru' is referred to as Teacher. 

I do not know why the Tamilnadu politicians have an issue with September 5 ,being referred to as -'Guru-Utsav' .  Both words , Guru and Utsav being as old as the Tamil language if not older and most likely widely used by people in the state . Many unemployed politicians from the state are creating a ruckus over a non-issue.

Mind well the people of Tamilnadu would have no objection to their children writing an essay about their favourite teacher in their language, but the politicians cutting across party-lines have an issue.

Ludicrous and ridiculous

Dilip Apte

September 1 , 2014