Girish's Blog

Mayawati is once more in the news for all the wrong reasons or maybe right reasons depending from which perspective you read the news. The BSP purports to be a part of the poor for the poor and by the poor, but the manner in which the current head of the political party is garlanded with currency garlands would raise doubts as to the motto even in the eyes of die-hard loyalists! On Monday, March 15 (ides of March) she has been gifted a Rs. 5 crore garland purportedly made of 50000 Rs. 1000 currency notes and yesterday another more modest garland of Rs. 18 lacs! The political ‘chamchas’ claim that henceforth they won’t give her floral garlands but garlands made of hard cash only. This raises the question as to where this money is utilized – a person who rose from poverty to such riches in a short political life-span with hardly any questions being raised by the revenue authorities, has done very little to alleviate grass roots poverty in her state. Her major achievements are building Am...

One more Hockey World Cup is past the stage where the countries which progress and the one’s which will play for pride have been sorted out. Unfortunately the two sub-continental teams which used to dominate the world hockey stage will only be playing for pride – they can be happy reflecting on past glory. When we beat Pakistan in the opener, Mr. Suresh Kalmadi announced a Rs. 100,000 award per player – a bit pre-mature I thought at that time – which has proved to be correct. What is the point in playing politics with sport – just shows we have extremely shallow thinking and cannot see the bigger picture. The administrators are going to end up blaming the players for a “lackluster” show – but where does the fault actually lie? A bit of introspection on the part of the administrators will lay bare the truth. After all a team is just as good as the system in which it functions and the system is only as good as the people who administer it. If we have to really succeed then a complete ove...

On February 2, 2010 I completed one year of Samarpan Meditation – one year in which life has become structured, simple and peaceful. As I look back on the past year I realize that a lot has changed in my life though life around me continues in the same fashion. In the last one year I have had a lot of experiences, the key ones I would like to share with you. My first trip to Dandi was on 23rd April, 2009 – this trip had been postponed twice earlier for one reason or another. This time too, our friend Ramnath Kamath was to come, but the night before departure he cancelled his trip due to some urgent personal commitments. My friend, Deepak and I decided to go along with Raju based on the directions e-mailed by Ramnath. Ramnath had told us that those who are destined to reach Dandi will definitely reach, and those who are not will under no circumstances reach the Ashram. We left at around seven in the morning and on our way to Dandi, at the second toll there was a serpentine queue when Ra...