small story - in the parliament

As soon as he finished his last line of speech in that joint session of houses, he could heard sound of clapping, appreciation, slogan in his support. Leaders from all parties started reaching him and congratulating him for a great speech. He was sure that this is going to be his one of the best speech which will be remembered in the history of parliament. Prime Minister himself came and congratulated him. He has been always appreciated as a strong speaker in and out of the house and party heavily relied on his oratory skills. Few days back, Prime Minister called him and asked him to prepare speech on the issue of child labor and he wanted that speech to be very efficient. He wanted him to specify each and every scheme government has started or the steps government has taken to control child labor in our country. Netaji took this very seriously as he felt there is a chance to get inducted in cabinet. He worked on each aspect of this issue and used every tricks to make his speech best of quality. He collected, analyzed and included data from different sources. He also added efficient words and phrase to message out government policies in best possible ways. He worked day and night with his associates to come up with this speech and then practiced it several times at home. Indeed his speech was revolutionary. As soon as he came out of the parliament, print and electronic media surrounded him. His party worker were raising slogans continuously. He answered all the media question very efficiently. He was sure that the live telecast of his speech has been great hit and yes it really was......

After a hectic day, Netaji was tired and came back home late in the evening. His phones were still ringing. His party leaders from his state were congratulating him. With every appreciation, Netaji was feeling more and more proud. He was feeling sure of getting inducted in cabinet soon. He also got phone calls from his son and daughter who were studying abroad. He ate his dinner without much taste as he was very tired. Because he was feeling very sleepy so he ordered his personal assistant to not disturb him with any phone calls now. He was so tired that he just fell down over the bed and then he realized how much pain he is having all over his body. He ordered someone send Ramu to give him a massage. Ramu was eight year old son of his old domestic help Kishna. Ramu used to help his father and mother to do work at Netaji's place. Netaji always felt that massage given by Ramu is most refreshing. While Ramu was busy massaging his foot gently, slowly Netaji fell asleep....... He was going to have a hectic day tomorrow too. A NGO has called him for inaugural speech for a week workshop on child labour......................

Who is clean?

With recent spot fixing allegation on some players of pakistan cricket team, everyone jumped over them. Media, former players, politicians, social leaders everyone from every possible corner of world started critising them. But then who is clean? Former players? I still remember Pakistan- Bangladesh one day match in a world cup where no one expected that Pakistan will loose but they did. Wasim Akram was the captain that time. In India itself, few players had been banned for lifetime a decade ago. Investigation agencies found players from almost every country weere in contact with bookies and in some cases they recieved money from bookies. This is proven fact. The entire cricket system is in mud whether we would like to accept or not. Indian politicians (who are usually supposed to be very corrupt) getting interest in cricket is directly or indirectly proving this. Lets closely observe Indian Premiur League of India. The entire setup of IPL indicates that cricket has gone beyond sport and has converted into money, high society contacts, parties and liquor. IPL has the teams where players from all playing nation participates. Naturally they must be close to all background activities which goes on along with IPL schedule.

Are we serious to clean cricket? Its a joke. No one is serious. Media is making money with these revelation and why would they like to seriously investigate this and get the truth out? After all, these (fixing news) are a good coverage for them. Cricket boards are full of corrupt officials and they themselves are making money thru these corrupt practices. If we start counting the names of officials, majority of the names will have tainted image. How can we expect them to clean the game and the entire setup.

Lets avoid watching cricket.

Its not raining here at Pune

History is repeating itself. This year too, Pune has received scanty rainfall till now and the water level in four dams (which supplied drinking water to city) has gone down rapidly to create drinking water scarcity in city. Same thing happened last year. That time government authorities promised and declared that they have made plans on paper to handle this kind of problem very efficiently in future but then nothing happened. As soon as monsoon arrived in August/September last year, all plans on paper got washed away with rain water flow in dams. Compared to November 2008, we had more water reserved in dams in November 2009 and also municipal corporation has reduced water supply significantly to city, then too we have only around 1.5 TMC water left in dams and we are going to face acute water crisis in coming days. Issues are still same:
1. Water distribution system here at Pune is faulty and need revamp. 25%-30% water get wasted in distribution. Some areas get more than average quota and some don't even get 50% of average quota.
2. Authorities are busy in making money or at least busy in trying to find out a situation to make more money. They are not serious to really take on this situation and work out for a good robust solution which will work for long term. Might be they are thinking that rain god became happy in August/September last year and same pattern may follow this year too so why to put extra efforts.
3. Citizen are wasting water to their full capacity and don't understand (or don't want to understand) the importance of natural resources. We feel happy in keeping ourselves educated illiterates.

All eyes on rain god. Who knows he may become happy soon and all dams will get enough water for next one year. Lets prepare for YAGNA to make rain god happy......

Spain is champion

Spain won FIFA world cup 2010. They were a good side and played very good football throughout the tournament. Octopus Paul was correct when it predicted Spain as a winner couple of days back :)
In hogh voltage tournament like World Cup, patience, consistency, teamwork matter more than individual talent. I have seen Spain coming to WC with player like Raul and not making big impacts. This time players like Xavi, Villa were bit low profile but left a huge impact in this tournament.
Celebration on for Spain........
Wait for WC 2014 started.

Its Spain vs Holland

FIFA world cup 2010 is at final stage. European teams Spain and Holland will fight for lifting the cup. At quarter final stage, out of 8 teams, 4 were south Americans but only one reached semi final and now its all European final at world cup. The question that whether they deserved or not is useless at this stage and we must accept that both teams must have played some extra ordinary football consistently and thus they will fight for the crown. It must be a classical final if both team continue the rhythm.

And they lost.....

They started very well. Throughout the first half Brazil played like a winner. Robinho scored a timely goal and created some opportunity for Kaka who missed two chances. Overall Brazil was on fire. Robinho was hitting top form. There were glimpses of Joga Bonito. Fabiano was colorless though. Then came the second half, a complete goof up between defender and goal keeper and equalizer goal. The story got a dramatic turn from here. Brazil started playing like a looser and conceded another goal to make score 1-2 against them. They started committing too many fouls which eventually saw Felip Melo out of the ground with a red card. With 10 players it was difficult to score another goal. Fabiano was completely out of touch. Dunga sent Milmar which could do very little to bother Holland's defence.

At last Brazil lost and now are out of WC 2010. Did they play very bad in quarter final against Holland? No. Absolutely not. If you see the statistics, ball possession, hit on target, corners in every department they were better than Holland but they lost confidence in second half and that causes them match. Romario in his recent article says it was over confidence but I felt it was a bad strategy to tackle Holland's player Robben which eventually cost them the match. They unnecessarily committed too many fouls against Arjen Robben. Dutch think tank was probably aware of Dunga's strategy to closely mark Robben and they exploited that. Every time Robben was tackled, he fell down on the ground like he got heavily injured.

Lastly even after getting reduced to 10 players, they had chances but no one at forward line could use those opportunity to score an equaliser. Kaka was playing very average. Robinho was playing well but heavily marked. Maicon was good but couldn't create impact. Elano was missing because of injury. Bastos was busy in committing fouls than playing to his potential. Lucio and Juan looked confused after Dutch equalizer.

On other hand Argentina played a very average level match against Germany and lost very badly.

एक पुरानी कविता - दीप बन जले हम

आओ दीप बन जले हम
तम को संपूर्ण शक्ति भर
एक हो छले हम
आओ दीप बन जले हम !

श्रृंखला बद्ध हो एक कतार में
आँधियों के तीव्र वार में,
वृष्टि , तूफानों के संसार में
दर्प अंधियारे का दले हम
आओ दीप बन जले हम !

झोपड़ी में या महलों में
निर्बल में या सबलों में
आत्मा लेकर कर कमलों में
नव विद्युत् बन चले हम
आओ दीप बन जले हम !

पाप जलेगा पुन्य मिलेगा
ब्रह्माण्ड का शून्य मिलेगा
सद्कर्मो का पुन्य मिलेगा
पवित्र श्रम से पले हम
आओ दीप बन जले हम !

उलूक चढ़ कर देवी लक्ष्मी
आकर देखे रात में रश्मि
मुदित वो फिर कैसी कमी
देवी वर से फूले फले हम
आओ दीप बन जले हम !


-- श्याम प्रकाश झा

एक पुरानी कविता - शक्ति पुंज

मुट्ठी भर
बिखरी हुई ज्योति
बिखेरा था जिसे
सैकड़ों दियों ने,
पुरजोर कोशिश कर
चुल्लू भर तेल के सहारे;

वही ज्योति शनै: शनै:
हुई लुप्त
घटता गया शौर्य उन दीयों का
और सर्वत्र व्याप्त हुआ
घुप्प अन्धेरा !

सुबह पांव फटने से पहले
फट गयी छाती उसी अँधेरे की
छिटकने लगी सूर्य की किरणे
यत्र तत्र सर्वत्र
हुआ लोप अकस्मात्
कुहनियों के बल रेंगता अँधेरा ;

सैकड़ों दीप नहीं
एक और बस एक
शक्ति पुंज
शौर्य प्रतीक
सूर्य को लालायित संपूर्ण विश्व ...... !

--- श्याम प्रकाश झा

Brazil 3, Chile 0 - Round of 16

Chile attacked with 3 forwards. They tried to display a fearless approach against Brazil but after some initial balance in game, match slowly started drifting towards Brazil. Before half time score was 2-0 and match ended with 3-0 on board. Kaka, Robinho and Fabiano still not very best but looks like they are improving. That's good sign for Brazil. If Kaka achieves his rhythm in next 3 matches, they will surely have good chances.

First two matches of Brazil - Group stage

I didnt find anything great with this brazilian team in WC 2010. Although they won both matches but could not display the quality play. In pockets, Kaka, Robinho, Fabiano, Elano, Maicon, Lucio demostrated brilliant play but could not continue that for 90 minutes. Fabiano was looking similar to Rivaldo :) Robinho has good dribbling skills but converting that in goal matters most. Kaka is heavily marked but his game was bit improved against Ivory Cost compared to first match. Hope he finds his form back. Elano was a surprise for me. I never heard about this guy but probably he was the star for Brazil with his hard work and excellent passes.

I am with Brazil. What about you?

Soccer world cup has arrived again with full of colors and excitement. I am with Brazil. No doubt at all. I dont know how it started and when it started but I have been with Brazil since 1990. I still remember how I was following Brazil in world cup 1994 and became fan of Romario Bebeto combination. Then in 1998 when Brazil lost final I felt too bad. In 2002 Ronaldo did the trick along with Rivaldo, Ronaldinho. After a not so good performance in 2006, its time for Brazil to fire again.

I am with Brazil because I have seen them playing best of ground play with very artistic move. Sometime in such a manner that you will feel like listening any musical instrument.

Lets enjoy this World Cup. Best of luck seleção.....

small story - path to parliament

Netaji is very much worried. He is worried because next day voting is scheduled for his constituency and he is not sure about victory. Yes he is a sitting MP and holds ticket of a national party but his contribution in the development of his constituency in last 5 years compelled him to think that he might lose. Its well past 9 PM. His poll managers are busy on mobiles and laptops to find out the ground realities.
Manager1: "Sir looks like tough chance for you this time. Yes because of majority of voters in this constituency are from your caste so you will get some votes and there are also some fixed party cadre votes but then too I can project that it will be a tough chance for you."
Netaji: "How much will be the difference? Do you have any figure around that."
Manager1: "Yes. Its close race. Margin may be as less as 20 thousands - 50 thousands."
Netaji: "It’s not too small to arrange overnight."
Manager2: "I have an idea sir. If you would like to listen"
Netaji: "Sure. tell me"
Manager2:"I have arranged voter list of few pockets in this constituency where relatively poor people stay. My study indicates that they are mostly slum areas of city. We will target 100000 voters from these city in 10 groups of 10000 each. We will distribute one Rs 1000/- note to each one of them overnight. It will cost you Rs 10 crores. In case even 50 % of them turns to vote you, you will win this election "
Netaji:"Its too big money to invest. Why the rates has soared to Rs 1000/- per voter. I thought it must be Rs 500/- per voter"
Manager3: " That is the rate for MLA election sir. Also in last 5 years money has depreciated a lot." This guy was a finance graduate and lost his way to join politics.
Manager2: "Anyway you are not in loss. In last 5 years you made lot more than this 10 crores figure. Only MP fund fetched you Rs 10 crores for last 5 years."
Netaji: "Let me think."
There was a pin drop silence for some time and then Netaji asked again.
Netaji: "Do we have cash arranged?"
Manager1: "Almost sir. We just need to finalize 10 teams of 2 persons each in different areas. One will hold the bag full with currency. Other will go thru the voter list and call the voters and hand over the Rs 1000/- note with a stern warning if they won’t vote for us"
Netaji: "Please also involve our party workers in respective areas for help and give priorities to workers with criminal background."
Manager2: "as you wish sir".
Netaji: "Dont do much delay. It’s already 10 PM"

Quickly 10 teams got formed. Notes of Rs 1000/- got arranged with the help of some local businessmen. Police and IT authorities were not an issue for them because Netaji belongs to ruling party. Every team left the poll management office by 11 PM. Whole night, lot of areas in constituency were awake. People waited for their turn in queues to get Rs 1000/- note from Netaji's worker. Some places notes got distributed with help of torch light. Around 5 AM in morning every team returned back with 100% utilization of budget.

After 3 days and whole day counting Netaji won election by 25000 votes. The areas where money were distributed, Netaji got huge number of votes. Success rate was more than 75%. Netaji picked some youngsters from these areas and distributed 2 bottles chilled beer to each one of them and some additional money to arrange for music system and crackers on public chowks to celebrate the victory.

Netaji is feeling relieved and very happy. While going to bed he is thinking what a cool way to get into the parliament and is also feeling bad about why did he waste last 2 months campaigning in his constituency in these very warm summer days..........

Accountability

Last week, secretaries and other office bearers of almost every sport bodies rushed to meet prime minister Mr. Manmohan Singh. It was an emergency like situation for them. They worked tirelessly. They wanted PM to intervene in the tussle between sport minister Mr. Gill and sport authorities. Sport minister wanted to fix age limit for office bearers (most of them are politicians who doesn’t even know A B C of respective sports. For example Mr Abhay Chautala is President of the Indian Boxing Federation) and that was the main problem for these office bearers. They are running sports bodies in this country for years now. Some of them are heading their sport body for last 15-20 years. They don’t want a cap for their tenures. They never got baffled like this when India didn’t win any medal in Olympics or won very few medals in Asiad with such a huge population. They also never got bothered when athletes and players complained about the facilities and training provided to them. They were also not worried when news of bribe and wrong doing surfaced in media surrounding their sports bodies. But when news came of limiting the age of officials, they were highly active to lobby and persuade sport minister to take back this decision. Reason.......? Comments ........?

आशा

संभल संभल के चल रहा
ये रोशनी का कारवां !

है स्याह रात का सफ़र
निशा का अंतिम प्रहर
खड़ी दनुजों की फौज है
गिरहकटों की मौज है

मगर उम्मीद की किरण
पर पल रहा ये नौजवान
संभल संभल के चल रहा
ये रोशनी का कारवां !

सफ़र जरूर है कठिन
प्राण भी पड़ती मलिन
जवाब दे रहा शरीर
देव बने हैं मूक-बधिर

बिना किसी वरदान के
मगर वो छू लेगा आसमां
संभल संभल के चल रहा
ये रौशनी का कारवां !

उसे पता वो जो नहीं चला
मौत क्या छोड़ेगी भला?
उस पार ही तो भोर है
आगे निकलने की होड़ है

अगर अभी रुका जो वो
ठौर भी मिलेगी कहाँ ?
संभल संभल के चल रहा
ये रौशनी का कारवां !

हर सुबह

किरने रश्मि की स्पर्श करती हैं
हर सुबह
उड़ेल कर भर कटोरी रंग सिन्दूरी
आकाश में ;

अंक में माँ के लेटा शिशु चहका
आँखों में थी
रात भर के संसर्ग की सम्मोहिनी शक्ति
और
मुंह था जिगर के पास में;

बूँद बूँद टपका दूध
लपक लेता है वो
माँ के जिगर से
और दिख ही जाती है संतुष्टि
उसके प्यास में;

हर शिशु न श्याम जैसा
न हर माता है यशोदा
पर यही संबंध
दिखता है उन सबों को
जो हैं वात्सल्य के तलाश में !

-- श्याम प्रकाश झा (सालों पहले की रचना)

A Brief intro of Charlie

(This is some part of my upcoming novel and all characters in this small story are fictitious)

While naming him "Charles Chhutkania", his parents never thought that his name will be a great topic for his engineering days. As soon as Charles joined college, his friends nicknamed him Charlie. Charles never got offended with his nickname until Chachwa who was weak in English took out a English-Hindi dictionary and found the literal meaning of word Charlie in Hindi. Once this meaning was shared within the group, none of these BIHARAT members called him Charles. They teased him and sometime offended him by repeatedly calling him Charlie. Charles who was initially popular among his group member because of his 6th standard school love story could observe more attention in his nickname from his group members very soon. The first name Charles and last name Chhutkania was lost somewhere in that boys hostel.....

Once Malik and RD observed a cartoon in some newspaper where the cartoon character was named “Uncle Charlie” and the caricature was really funny. Both of them started collecting this cartoon and sharing with other group members. In Charlie’s absence, all of them would sit together and go through that cartoon with different analysis and sometime visualize that their friend Charles is in that cartoon over a couple of cigarette shared among them. It was REALLY very funny for them. Laund was a person whose imagination will always be revolving in last orbit like an electron waiting for threshold energy to go out of orbit. This new cartoon character indeed worked as threshold energy for Laund’s imagination and he hatched a plan to make fun of Charles Chhutkania. Few marker pens were bought / borrowed and Malik started practice to draw that cartoon character on paper. Once he got proficient, all the hostel inmates from the same floor were taken into confidence to make this plan successful. The D Day arrived soon. Everyone was ready to contribute. Late night after Charlie was fast asleep, Malik drew this cartoon character with markers on all the mirrors (hanged over wash basins) in washroom area. Some of the other people signed the drawings and wrote their funny comments below the caricature. Totally unaware of the proceedings going in washroom, Charlie was sleeping in his room and two boys were standing out of his room as guards to restrict Charlie going to washroom if in case he wakes up and go to toilet. The half an hour operation was successful.

Next day, like every morning at 7:30 AM, Charlie woke up, took toothbrush and toilet mug in his hands and ran towards the washroom. He was surprised to see all the four toilets were available for him to use. Usually he had to wait for his turn and mostly he had to kick the toilet doors several time till the person relieving himself will come out of toilet. Actually it was well planned that no one will be in washroom area when Charlie will enter. A little surprised Charlie entered toilet. He could sniff some conspiracy but was not sure. He was still in half sleep mode when he came out of toilet and stood in front of wash basin. He washed his hands and looked at the mirror. He saw some caricature and comments on the mirror. Oh…. Its Uncle Charlie drawn with some interesting comments. He rinsed his eyes to have a better vision. He could still see Uncle Charlie caricature. He tried to clean that from mirror but in vain. He turned and had a look on other 3 mirrors. Everywhere he found same stuff. He understood that there is something very fishy here and he is the target today. All of the sudden few of his friends appeared there and started showing sympathy to him. They all were looking very disturbed with what had happened with Charlie. His friends lambasted the unknown planner of this incident and consoled him that they will thrash people behind this humiliating stuff. Charlie was aware that this is done by them only and he was not interested in false sympathy. He was upset and angry. He didn’t utter a single word, didn’t brush his teeth and vanished. As soon as he left, his friends assembled in washroom area and started laughing.

Whenever Charlie would get upset, he will start studying very hard. After this episode same thing happened. He stopped going out with his group members and mingled more with other people in hostel. It continued for weeks and then slowly his friends started feeling bad and one day they erased all the cartoons from wash basin mirrors. After this Charlie could not continue his “boycotting the group” attitude for long and came again in same fold. That semester, Charlie scored more in almost all the subjects :)

Revisiting "Katha" - Basu - Rajaram theory of life

In my childhood days, once I got a chance to watch "Katha", a 1982-83 movie on Doordarshan. Being a small boy, I didn't like this movie much. I was more interested in Amitabh's, Mithun's movies those days :). Later when I grew, I again watched this movie and started liking this so much that I watched this several time. This movie is directed by Sai Paranjape and the director has made this movie simple, straight and she is successful in messaging the audience that in this world everywhere you will find either a Basu or a Rajaram. Usually the probability of getting a Basu than Rajaram is more in current world. Basically each one of us has some attributes matching with Basu and some with Rajaram. With concept of relativity some Basu may be proven Rajaram in front of more skillful Basu.

Character of Basu was played by Farukh Sheikh and character of Rajaram was played by Naseeruddin Shah. Both of them had done enough justice to their roles.

When I went to college for higher education and then started job, I started finding more and more Basu than Rajaram. In fact lately I started realising that Basus are more successful than Rajarams.

Going back to movie Katha, director had ensured that at last it was Rajaram who was the real hero. But then this movie is 28 years old. I suspect if director would have ended this movie in same way if she would have made this movie in current world.

Watch this movie to understand these characters and then co relate these characters with your own life, surroundings and society.

Let's appreciate Nitish

Recently me and my family travelled Bihar. Our last trip was in 2007. We took a Mumbai-Patna flight and then drove to Muzaffarpur. We stayed at Muzaffarpur for some days with parents and then drove again to Bhagalpur to meet my eldest brother and then again drove back to Patna from Bhagalpur. I was pleasantly surprised by observing the change in Bihar. Roads have improved a lot. Everywhere roads looked in good condition to drive. We didn’t feel security problems at any place. The electricity situation has improved. Lot of new flyovers were seen in Patna and also some at Muzaffarpur. Policemen were seen on road doing their duty. Traffic police was also seen controlling traffic (at least I had never seen them active at my native place Muzaffarpur earlier). We also came to know that now government schools and hospitals are operating well and are in good condition. People are not afraid of travelling. All together it was a good change seen.

We must appreciate Nitish for his good work. Lalu-Rabri combine had took back bihar at least by 50 years but Nitish worked on basics and results are seen. But still a long way to go.....

We need people like Nitish to run our government at every level.