Girish's Blog

The Chief Minister has actually intervened in stopping minor repairs to Peddar Road –can you imagine the CM intervening over road repairs?! That is sheer casteism if you ask me! Has the CM ever intervened while major surgery has taken place on various roads in Mumbai and the operation left incomplete for months on end? Nope. Those roads are not used by the rich and the famous nor do they lead to the CM’s residence, you see. Elsewhere in the civilized world, when road repair works are about to commence, a public notice is put up warning the users that the road will be closed for repairs from this day to this day and if the repairs are to be carried out in a few hours, they are usually carried out at night with no inconvenience to the public! In India, “sabh kuch chalta hai” that’s why you find roads works starting just before the onset of the monsoon, specially in March because the budgets are likely to lapse. So to utilize the money before it lapses contracts are awarded to hand-in-glo...

Why is it that every sordid story about abuse of women’s rights has some other woman behind it somewhere in the background actively participating in violation of a fellow woman’s rights? Take the recent case of Mira Road where a tantric – so called medicine man – convinced a man to rape his daughter for 9 years and he too participated in the violation of the girl from the age of 12! In this case promises were made that by so doing the man will gain spiritually and financially. In this journey his wife also participated and encouraged him to violate their daughter. Not only did she let the father rape the child but also the tantric – how can a mother be so hard hearted as to allow such a fate to fall on her daughter? It completely baffles me as to why this had to happen at all. Do people not have the courage or the heart to decipher between right and wrong – specially when it comes to their own! The same fate was to befall the younger daughter, that is when the elder one took courage in...

The Maharashtra government has proposed to increase traffic fines manifold to deter vehicle owners from breaking traffic rules- this actually is long overdue and should have been implemented quite a few years ago. The trouble with rules is they are enforced by human beings who are not only under paid but also many a times not paid in time. I am sure the collection of the government through traffic fines will definitely go up in arithmetic progression, I am confident that the private collection of the traffic police will grow in geometric progression. I am sure all of you have at some point or the other experienced a traffic policeman who has come out of hiding to catch you for supposedly going through a red light – what happened after that is something each one of you needs to ask him/herself! See what I mean?! Instead of creating more room for corruption if the government creates an infrastructure which encourages the public to use public transport instead of their own vehicles for co...

Been kind of busy, with the financial year coming to a close, things are kind of hectic hence the gaps in putting up posts. I think I have got to you with the title, haven’t I? You guys must be wondering what the hell is a “povertician”. I have coined a new word for our ubiquitous politicians who come election time, always harps on alleviating poverty! This word is actually a new one for the “wiktionary” – “a povertician is a politician who while claiming to alleviate poverty enriches himself with the funds to be used for poverty alleviation”. I have been thinking of writing this post for the past four days but was not finding the time. It has actually been prompted by Jairam Ramesh’s claim that the Congress has done the most to alleviate poverty in this country! He also made a claim that the baggage of 3000 years cannot be done away with in just 60 years after independence. “Baggage of 3000 years” – that is a very strong statement – he is probably alluding to the caste system and how ...

Lalit Modi is shifting the IPL – a big money spinner to either UK or South Africa – this is the compromise formula worked out by the IPL in conjunction with the BCCI, as the various state governments where the matches were to be held have refused to provide security to the event. After working around with various permutations and combinations the IPL eventually decided to have a truncated tournament and shifted quite a few matches to Maharashtra on the assurance that security would be provided. In the meanwhile, with the national elections round the corner, Sharad Pawar voiced his aspirations for Prime Ministership and the seat sharing formula with the Congress in Maharashtra came under pressure. Ashok Chavan who, whether you like it or not, is the proxy for Vilasrao Deshmukh who continues to do a Rabri with Ashok as Laloo did in Bihar with his wife. Also the UPA seems to be losing the ‘U’ in the acronym with various allies flexing their muscles and going their own separate ways. The u...

The case reported a couple of days ago in the newspapers where a young girl appearing for her S.S.C. examinations committed suicide is shocking to say the least. There have been a spate of suicides across the country in exam related stress during the last one month, but the one I am talking about takes the cake. The invigilators should understand that all students are not crooks, students do carry notes to study at the last minute. This student, Bhavi, was “caught” with the chits outside the classroom BEFORE the exams had started, hence taking a signed statement from the student saying that she was caught with chits is nothing less than outright high handedness. I hope the person who caught this girl would mete out the same treatment to his child in a similar situation. Children appearing for their first public exam are as it is under a high degree of stress due to peer pressure plus parental expectations. I can imagine the turmoil in a young mind trying to look friends in the eye and ...

This is something I have wanted to express for quite some time, so here goes. Most of the people who work spend more than half their waking hours in office – so in a way you can say your office becomes your home away from home. Many people find soul-mates with whom they share their innermost secrets – secrets which people at home may not know. Psychologists and behavioral studies have shown and thrown up the concept of “office spouses” where even people who are married find a person in whom they can confide or bitch about safely without getting into trouble. This is a kind of stress reliever and helps the individual to get their problems, issues out of their system and increases productivity in an organization. Then in such a situation, when it comes to mundane things like basic hygiene, attitude and consumption patterns why do individuals behave differently in office from the way they would at home? Let me give you a few examples – at home do you litter your house? Do you leave the fa...

On Sunday my entire family had been invited for breakfast at his hotel by my eldest brother who was visiting Mumbai. During the course of breakfast my elder daughter asked me whether I knew what Vallari (the younger one) did in school, to which I replied in the negative. Then they asked her whether they should tell me what transpired, and Vallari was shaking her head in the negative. I told them if she does not want me to know, it’s OK as we had come for relaxing and I did not want the mood spoilt over forcing an issue. The moment I said that Vallari gave her permission to tell me what transpired in school. Guys, this is really interesting as it goes to show the approach of students as well as parents. This is the story as narrated to me by my wife and two daughters, Pallavi and Vallari. The English teacher had given a project to the students some time in November on “kinds of sentences”. The teacher had formed groups of six students and named a leader in each group – and Vallari was t...

I had been so looking forward to this event I feel drained out now and am suffering from withdrawal symptoms – the only cure is to have another re-union soon. Guys we had the most rollicking time ever. Bharat Kakodkar was down from Pune and he drove me down from Andheri to school (I sent my car home – no point taking two cars). In the past six months I have passed school at least ten times on the way to the Sales Tax office in Mazgaon (you get to go there if your stars are reealllllly baaad) but never had the mood to drop into school – though the thought did cross my mind a couple of times! Bharat and I caught up with each others lives post school over the hour odd long drive. It was really nice to see that the old boy has not changed a bit in spite of life’s twists and turns. We reached school at 8pm sharp and met up with a whole lot of buddies after 32 loooonnnnggggggg years! Adarbad was there with our entry passes, God bless him! We had a whale of a time yakking, eating bunchops, gu...

Last year just before the onset of the monsoon (methinks it was around June 5 or so), the BMC in its infinite wisdom decided to scrape off almost the entire top layer of the Vakola flyover. In fact the contractors had just finished the top layer about four months before it got scraped off. So a perfectly good road was made un-motorable because of some insane order being given by some stupid mandarin sitting in the BMC. That bad stretch got completely damaged by the end of the monsoon creating huge traffic jams which otherwise would not have been there. In fact the repair job was completed just about a month back – you drive over the flyover now and you will realize that India is probably the only country in the world where you can have undulating layers on a bridge, making the entire ride a nice and bumpy one. I have a theory that the guys sitting in BMC and the contractors together have got a deal going with the motor garages for sending them a regular stream of customers with vehicle...

Yesterday on Zee Café, I was watching the Women’s World Awards 2008 which took place on March 5, 2009 and I was really impressed by two ladies who were awarded prizes for “Hope” and “Social” categories. The other categories for which the awards are given are “Actress”, “Artist”, “Style” “Fashion” “Entertainment”, “Achievement”, “Tolerance”, “Business”, “Career” and “Lifetime Achievement”. I did a bit of research on these awards and decided to write about them and the persons who were given the awards under the categories “Hope” and “Social”. I do not know how many of you are aware of the Women’s WORLD AWARDS which have been founded by two men – Georg Kindel, an Austrian, and ex-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. In the year 2000 they first instituted an award called “Mens World Awards”. In Georg’s words: “The idea was not intended to create a macho event showing how good or successful men were, but rather to convey the message that much still has to be done, so that men can change the...

Some time back I had written about my brush with the cops after the motorbike accident. The following are a few interesting interactions with cops I have had in the past few years. One day whilst returning from my uncle’s farm, I had just crossed Sion railway station and I was in two minds whether to go straight and take the highway to office or take a right turn at the signal and go via Kurla. I was in the lane for turning right, I saw a couple of traffic cops and instinctively took the right instead of going straight. The traffic cop nevertheless flagged me down and asked for my license. I asked him in Marathi what offence I had committed as the signal for going right was on. He told me that I planned to go straight but turned right (the guy was smart – he probably read my thoughts!) that’s why he wanted my license. I asked him, was I wrong in turning right, he replied no – I asked did I jump the signal, he replied no, I asked him did I commit any other offence – he replied no but I ...

Whether Pakistan accepts it or not, their playing with fire has ultimately begun to consume it in the flames it helped create and fan. I wonder how they expected to escape getting burnt in their own fire. Over a period of time, one has read about the SWAT valley being handed over to the Taliban, the NWFP and the FATA region being out of the control of the Pakistani government. All these are signs that the so called civilian government is in no position to control the terror forces it helped create against India and Afghanistan. The monster has become too big to control – even the handlers in the ISI probably now have their tails between their legs as their protégés stop listening to them and act on their own. Historically, politically created monsters have always ended up consuming their creators in the sub continent – Indira Gandhi by the Sikh fundamentalists (she created Bhindranwale and had to attack the Golden Temple to kill him and his movement) who killed her in revenge. Rajiv Ga...

There are some interesting brushes with the cops which I have had over the past twenty years or so which I would like to share with you. The rest will be in brief in a subsequent post. My first brush was in 1992 when my brother had come down from Kuwait. He had taken my motorbike and had gone out, on the way back at Mahim, on Senapati Bapat Road – opposite Johnson & Johnson House a transvestite came on the road and threw water (in those days hutments ruled the entire stretch of Senapati Bapat Marg) and this was a routine feature. But this was the first time my brother had taken the motorbike out, he braked when he saw the person coming into the middle of the road and skidded on the water which had been thrown on the road It was around 10.30pm when I got a call from my brother about the accident. I did not tell anybody at home and took a cab to see him. Both his forearms did not have any skin, his right eye had a huge cut at the eyebrow (boxing ishtyle) and his shoulder looked lop s...

It has been widely reported that there is a major shortfall in direct tax collections in the last fiscal – actual shortfall could be in the region of Rs. 60,000 crores (PTI release 16.2.09). If anyone had followed last year’s high tax payers they were led from the front by banks with very high declared profits followed by various industry blue chips. This year the shoe is on the other foot, direct tax collections are down which directly points to the fact that recession has also hit India. Mr. Kamal Nath (Industries Minister) may digress so may the Finance Minister, but the tax collection speaks for itself! Instead of accepting that there is a shortfall in collection due to recession, the Government has given instructions to the revenue arm to carry out surveys to increase the collection. We now have various revenue arms of the Central and State Governments calling on industry – like the Income Tax department, the Customs, the VAT authorities, etc. What happens in such cases? Does th...