ChaWalla

What do you think the ChaWalla will do after losing 2024 election?
Of course he can go back to Gujarat and sell tea again.
But since he now has enough experience running Vande Bharat Trains, if he applies he should get the points man job for Vande Bharat :)

Monarchy

In the month of May this year, we got to witness two lavish and elaborate coronation ceremonies in two of the oldest countries in the world.
Monarchy may be a dying tradition, but in many parts of the world, it has great attraction.

The Lost Decade

Yesterday I was telling my friend that the decade from 2004-2014 was the most propsperous in Indian history since Shah Jahan. Of course, I was speaking in jest.
This morning I thought of checking on the data and see how much truth is there to this hunch.
You can see for youself what an opprotunity we lost in the last decade. The grey bars indicate the projected value that we would have achieved had we grown at the same rate.

I remember back in 2008-9, most big business leaders used to speak of India-China while speaking about their business growth and global expansion. Of course, India was far behind China even then. But at least we pretended to compete. But now no one speaks of India-China together any more. It seems we are relegated to a lower league.

Update: This is uncanny. I just asked ChatGPT this question "Which one is the most prosperous decade in indian history?"

Bye Bye Modi

People of Karnataka are too cultured, educated, sophisticated people to be swayed by these thugs.

South India has shown us the way how to get rid of hatred, toxicity and violence from public life.

It is up to the rest of the India to follow the lead and send these frauds back to Gujarat where they belong.

Dear Leader

More projects were completed during the time of Dr. Manmohan Singh than our dear leader.

But I do not recall Dr. Singh coming going to every single project to inaugurate them, stopping the main highways for the events.

For example, when Bangalore Airport was opened in 2008, it was an awe-inspiring project compared to the projects of the time. Or the Bangalore metro in 2011, or the NICE Road. They were just opened to the public. Done.

Now every drain, every dustbin, even before they are ready, must be inaugurated by the dear leader. He will come from Delhi with 50 planes, 500 cars, 5000 security personnel, and 500 journalists. The city stops for 12 hours for the smooth travel of our dear leader. Then the public has to wait for another six months for the project to be complete.

Other prime ministers spent money on finishing the projects. The dear leader not only spends money on projects, but he also spends an equal amount of money in educating us about how great our country has become under his leadership. Then he spends our money to thank himself for the great work he is doing.

Thank you our dear leader.

BJP

A few days ago, Rahul Gandhi asked a simple question to Narendra Modi.

“How much money Adani paid to the BJP?”

He was sent to jail.

I have a simple question for Narendra Modi.

“Who pays for these front page ads?”

We don’t need an answer. We know the answer.

Modi is Scared

Remember them? Narendra Modi destroyed her life, her career, and her family just to win the Bihar election.

Remember Disha Ravi, Aryan Khan

Narendra Modi is scared of young children. He will send to jail anyone who he considers a threat to his power.

Tomorrow Narendra Modi may take away your daughter for posting a video or writing a blog.

Next time you vote, please think.

Rahul Gandhi

Now I know he is the most honest politician in the world.

How do I know that?

They sent him to jail for making a political attack on Mr. Modi.

Imagine what they would have done to him had they found even the slightest evidence of corruption against Rahul.

They would have crucified him.

Modi and Adani

Rahul Gandhi asked a simple question in the Lok Sabha.

How much money did Adani pay to the BJP?

Of course, they did not give him any answer. Instead they switched off the broadcast of the Lok Sabha TV.

Why?

Because Mr. Modi knows that this question is the answer.

Pappu the Martyr

Until yesterday he was “Pappu”. No one, not even me, paid any attention to what he had to say.

Now Mr. Modi’s personal vendetta has made him a martyr. He now joined a long list of Gandhi Martyrs who sacrificed their lives for this country.

Now he is the new hope. The center of a fearless resistance movement who is fighting to protect the sole of India.

Carry on, Mr. Gandhi. We are with you.

No power in the world could take away our freedom for long, not even the mighty British. What chance dose a mean-minded, vengeful, short sighted politician has?

The Pursuit of Happiness

This is all I wanted from life. A clean bed, a clean bathroom, enough food to fill my belly, and a house full of books. I never doubted that I would attain this life. I never wanted anything more from life.

We are human because we have a brain, which makes us different from animals. I believe life is best enjoyed using our brains. So I try to feed my brain, with stimulating ideas, beautiful literature, music, art, traveling to places.

I am not against people finding other ways of enjoying life. But this is how I enjoy life.

All I hope is that I have plenty of time to pursue my happiness.

We support President Putin of Russia

I am writing this message from India. I just wanted to let you know that we stand by you in your fight against the imperial powers of the west, particularly the USA and England.

For the last 400 years they have rained in death, destruction and devastation to satisfy their insatiable greed for other people’s land and wealth, including our own India. There is probably not a single part of the world that escaped their destructive wars and systematic loot. Even today their army continues to kill, torture and displace people all over the world to grab and loot their wealth. Only you stand on their path of complete world domination and subjugation of the rest of the world. Under your able leadership Russia is moving from strength to strength, so that now the colonizers are terrified of you. Please give them such a bloody nose that they never dare to muddle around in other countries anymore.

Please note that the whole of India stands by you. Not just India, but the rest of the world, oppressed by the west stand with Russia, in Asia, Africa, Latin America.

Only problem is that the west has complete domination of the propaganda machine due to their control of the English language, the Internet and other PR mediums. Please make sure that they don’t win this part of the war. For example, the RT TV channel is taken out from Indian networks. Bring that back and make sure people hear the other side of the story.

Hope you stay in good health and spirit and bring this conflict to a successful conclusion.

Subhendu

Facebook is Evil

Is Facebook, or its parent company Meta the most evil corporation in the world? Maybe not. The cigarette companies or the arms dealers may be more harmful.

But I think it is safe to say that it is the most pernicious software company in the world, led by the most evil CEO in the short history of computer software.

When I started my career in Computer Software in the 90’s, computers were still a novelty and people who worked with computers were treated with respect as scientists and pioneers. Those days are gone. Computers are now a household appliance used by even grandmothers. People tend to treat computers with annoyance and suspicion lest they will be cheated by some scammer and hacker. But still it was not hated as evil until Mr. Zuckerberg brought it down to dust with his rapacity and arrogance. To be fair, he is not alone. But he is by far the face of evil in large tech companies.

You know you have hit the rock bottom when a corrupt, shady, unsavoury organisation like the Australian Government sues you for cheating. That Mark Zuckerberg is a greedy, arrogant entitled person was clear from his student days. Here is a glimpse on how he treats his target customers. He thought they are Dumb fucks. Now you may say he was just 19 year old. He did not know. But he did not change even when he grew up. In 2005 he tried to fool the world by donating all his wealth to a foundation, which is completely owned by him. I could not find much info about the charity activities of that foundation. Maybe some pittance was given, but that is negligible and also for questionable purposes. Who is he trying to fool? His customers I guess.

Facebook spreads hate that is responsible for the deaths of thousands of people around the world. A little investment to moderate those content could save hundreds of lives. But Facebook spends almost negligible amounts for monitoring fake news and hateful content. Here is a small list.

Recently a whistleblower named Frances Haugen revealed how facebook misled inventors and pushed hateful contents for profit.

Facebook spread hateful content that led to riots and killings of Hindu minorities in Bangladesh

Facebook helped spread the genocide against the Rohingyas in Myanmar.

Meta has helped the US Government to wage their illegal wars and help spread their propaganda. Again these wars kills thousands of people all over the world

Recently Meta promoted violence against the Russians during the Ukraine war. Obviously they don't care about Ukraine. They are just doing this to appease the US government and to make more money by pushing violence.

This is just a tiny sample. If someone collects all such incidents, it will be 100 times this list.

The sad part, most of this damage could have been contained by a little less greed, by spending a tiny amount of money moderating contents. But Mark would not not even spend a few millions to protect his customers, while he keeps his hundreds of billions. Why should he? We are just “dumb fucks”, expendible.

He sells our private data to anyone who pays, without any scrupule. This data is then used mostly for harmful purposes like rigging elections, influential public opinion etc.

The US Congress did the sham investigation and hearing of all tech companies, including Meta. It was obvious during their testimony how they are compromising privacy, security and well being of their users. But they did absolutely nothing. Money can buy silence from anyone.

Then there are other more damaging effects of Facebook. From loss of time, productivity, social life, to loss of concentration, anxiety depression and sucide from using the harmful products that Mr. Zuckerberg promotes. And Meta does not spend any money to contain the damaging effects of these products. I have not seen any large scale study funded by them to study the bad effects of constant exposure to social networks or any publicity campaign to educate the users, particularly children. Even cigarette companies fund cancer research. But not Mark. To him, his customers are “dumb fucks”, to be scarificed on the alter of his greed for billions.

And he is right. We are “dumb fucks”. We keep using his products, harm ourselves and make him rich. Technology is everywhere these days. We cannot live without them. But surely we can choose which technologies are useful to us and which are harmful.

I stopped using Facebook a long time ago. Never used Instagram. I still use WhatsApp, grudgingly, because it is difficult to live without in India. But I am cutting down. Every time I send a message, the ugly face of Mark Zuckerberg flashes in front of my eyes and I think how he is profiting by selling my privacy. And I stop.

I hope others will also stop, soon.

Note: Most of these information is collected from the internet. I do not have the training or the capacity to fact check them. But they are from renowned brands. I have reasonable confidence that they are correct. Please feel free to correct any inaccuracy.

War in Ukraine

I am no pundit of geopolitical events, world economy or politics. This article is written purely from what I saw on TV and gathered from the internet. The war in Ukraine has made me so angry and helpless that I was forced to write this piece to give an outlet to my emotions.

Please read this nice article first.

It is customary in writing about the invasion of Ukraine to start by expressing sorrow at the plight of the Ukrainian people. I will skip that in my post. Primarily because they have brought it onto themselves. They have consistently provoked Russia at the behest of the West, knowing fully well the consequences, not just the government, but the people.

• They have deposed an elected government in collaboration with the far right movement, which is openly Nazi, inluding their emblem.
• They now have a real Nazi militia, The Azov Battalion, fully supported by the govermnet, that commits war crimes in the Donbas region.
• They have slaughtered 14000 Russian speaking people, burying them in mass graves.
• They have elected successively radical leaders that suppressed the rights of the Russian speaking people, banned Russian language, even though 30% of Ukrainains has Russian as their mother tongue.
• They sent 7000 troops to invade Iraq, during Terrorist Bush’s Iraq-Oil-Grab war.
• Even now, when their country is half destroyed, millions of people fleeing their home, I did not see a single Ukrainian speaking about settlement, negotiation or peace. Only talk is about more sanctions, more weapons, more war against Russia.

Well if war is what you want, then why complain? You got what you want. Fight it. We are not going to fight it for you. If any country ever deserved war, it is Ukraine.

The less we speak about the west and their media, the better. Even since the crisis started, neither Biden nor Borris, even spoke of negotiation or peace. They only spoke about how to destroy Russia. That is their objective all along. So that they get a free hand to exploit the world, conquer Venezuela for example. For west Ukraine is a sacrificial lamb, to be sacrificed on the altar of their global domination. They baited Ukraine to provoke Russia into a bloody war. Now they are using civilian dead bodies to shore up support in their own country to wage proxy war. BBC and other media always have photos of a child refugee on their front page. Again no discussion about negotiated settlement. Just channelling the outpouring of common peoples emotions to war hysteria. This is nothing short of media terrorism. But who is at fault here for this deception of the west? Ukraine. Only three months ago they saw what America did to Afghanistan. They just cut loose and disappeared in a week, leaving the Afghans and all their “allies' ' Including India in the lurch. Poor India invested 3,000,000,000 there to promote “Freedom and Democracy” for America. Over night all that gone to Taliban to be used to bomb India. And still, Ukraine did not learn.

Now this article is not about how the war started. This is about my wishful thinking about what will be the outcome of the war. My hope is that Russia and China and the rest of the world, including India, that has been suffering from exploitation, death and destruction from the west for the last 400 years will benefit from this war.

Again I admit freely that I know nothing about economics and war and geopolitics. I am just an angry spectator from a third world country. This is my wishful thinking.

• Russia will put a stop to NATO expansion and subdue Ukraine for good. NATO will now get the point. They simply cannot overpower Russia. Not until there is a determined leader in Russia like President Putin. And at some point some of the less jingoistic European members will demand that NATO comes to terms with Russia. Europe needs Russia as much Russia needs Europe. I mean, how long can you ban Dostoevsky.
• The Russian economy will emerge stronger. It will diversify from it’s heavy reliance on energy export to other sectors like manufacturing etc.
• Russia and China will develop alternate currencies to challenge the dollar. This is the doomsday for America. For decades America waged war against Libya, Iraq even used threats against its closest allies who had challenged the dollar. Not this time.
• Russia and China will create alternate payment and clearing systems. This will challenge SWIFT, Mastercadr and Visa. I think India should pitch in with UPI.
• The Russian army will gain crucial combat experience. Other than minor skirmishes in Chechnya and Ossetia, the Russian army has not fought a war for a long time. Whereas America is constantly fighting wars all over the world. This puts the Russian army at a disadvantage. Same thing happened between India and China. Because India fights a constant proxy war with Pakistan, our soldiers are battle ready. So they could give a befitting reply to the Chinese army during the Galwan conflict.

As for India, so far we have done the right thing by staying neutral in this conflict. We should take care of our interests. But I fear that BJP is pro western and they may cave in to American pressure. If that happens, that will be bad for us. Hope we have not forgotten our lessons from Afghanistan.

This article is written in extreme haste. Please ignore any mistakes.

Update 9 March: After posting this article, I was a bit uncomfortable about why I was defending an aggressor. Have I misgudged in my naive affinity to Russia. Then I came across this article. So I am not alone thinking in this line.

Two Escapes

In this article I will describe two daring escapes by two remarkable leaders of India. These stories are so fascinating and their impact so profound that there are no parallels like them in human history. They fought against odds that are so overwhelming that the David versus Goliath story becomes pale in comparison. An ant against an elephant is a more apt comparison.

First Escape:

Shivaji Bhonsale escaped from his Agra prison, where he was imprisoned by Emperor Aurangzeb on 19 August 1666. The escape itself from one of the strongholds of the empire is miraculous. But his subsequent journey back to his kingdom through thousands of kilometres of hostile territory is just incredible. He started with just a few men and little money. He deceived the imperial guards and search parties by travelling through a much longer route of Mathura, Allahabad, Varanasi, Puri, Golkonda and then back to his country. On the way he had to abandon all his followers in fear of getting detected, he lost all his money, he begged for provision and eventually against all odds reached home safely.

After reaching home, he crowned himself king. He challenged the richest and mightiest empire of his time and eventually brought about its downfall in less than 50 years of his death.

The odds that he fought against are incredible. He fought the combined forces of the Mughal Empire and its two sultanates Bijapur and Golconda at the height of their power. Their combined strength included a million strong army, hundred thousand cavalry, over two thousand pieces of artillery manned by the finest European gunners. They had a combined revenue of five billion rupees, one third of the global GDP.

Against this Shivaji had less than fifty villagers and two hundred rupees a year revenue from his land. But he fought with steadfast determination and insatiable quest for liberty and eventually overpowered all three adversaries and established a kingdom based on justice and equality. He faced religious persecution under the Mughal rulers. So he ensured that all citizens get equal rights and no one is persecuted in his realm. Finally when he died after establishing a strong, peaceful and prosperous kingdom, he was so loved by his people, that he entered the pantheon of the great rulers like Ashok and Akbar.

Second Escape:

On 16 January 1941 Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose escaped from his home in Calcutta, where he was kept in house arrest by the British rulers of India. He travelled through Dhanbad, Delhi, Peshawar, Jalalabad, Kabul, Central Asia, Moscow and finally reached Germany. There he raised an army to fight against the British Colonial rulers of India. Then he travelled to Japan via submarines evading all the allied blockades and reached Japan, again raised an army, went to Singapore, then Burma and fought against the British army. He lost the battle. But due to his determined push, the British Empire, the mightiest Empire in human history crumbled to dust in less than 10 years.

When he started his journey, Netaji did not have any followers. He had just been ousted from his own Congress party, of which he was the elected president. He was arrested and kept interned in his house by the British police. He did not have any alliance with any foreign power. What he had was a burning desire to free his countrymen from the tyranny and oppression of an alien power. And with that inspiration he achieved what no one could ever dream of, decolonization of half the world. It is sad that he did not live to see this new world.

Sources:

Mahaniskraman

Shivaji: The Grand Rebel

I recently read the book Mahaniskraman by Sisir Kumar Basu, a thrilling account of Netaji’s escape from house arrest. Sisir Basu, Netaji’s nephew, drove him during the first leg of his journey to Gomo.

Last November I went to Kolkata. There I visited the museum dedicated to his life in Victoria Memorial. Although I hated the idea that a colonial monument is used as the site for a museum after him, I liked the exhibits. Particularly one depicting his escape graphically. I stood in front of it for a long time thinking how passionately he must have hated subjugation by an alien power that he undertook this journey to free up his country from bondage. I have a desire to translate Sisir Basu’s book to English to make it available for all Indians to read.

Last month I read the book Shivaji: The Grand Rebel. Very nice book on Shivaji’s life and time. Then the idea struck me that these two escapes had such a profound impact on human history that I felt like sharing with you all.

Thanks for reading.

What If...

What if a genie appears to me from somewhere and gives me boons.

• Your exile is over, you go home now.
• Your slavery is over, you are master of your time now.
• Your loneliness is over, you live among friends from now.
• Your struggle to acquire foreign tongues is over, you will speak in Bangla from now.
• Your hardship is over, you will eat fish and rice now.
• Your nights of fear are over, your maa will sleep next to you now.

What if...

Sunnyvale

It has been three and half years since I last went to Sunnyvale. I was there last time in January 2018. I was at Infinera at the time. I used to go on business trips to Sunnyvale a few times every year. I left Infinera in 2019 and since then I stopped going there.

Do I miss Sunnyvale? Sure I do. I miss the sun. Sunnyvale is true to its name. It is indeed a sunnyvale. I have not seen such bright sun anywhere, except maybe in Calgary. I miss the wonderful people there, Rajan, Mahidhar, Iftekhar, Biao, who are warm, friendly, and welcoming. I miss the drive along Route 101 at 80 mph in a nice big car that does not wobble at high speed. I miss the clean, organized first world living where everything is predictable and affordable.

What I do not miss. The horrible never ending flights to get there. In the plane I could not sleep, could not stay up, my knees used to hurt, my stomach was bloated up and my ears used to hurt. The trouble did not end even after the plane landed. Then I had to wait in a queue for immigration that seemed to stretch all the way to the bay! I do not miss the jet lag, staying up all night in my hotel room fearing what will come out of the bathroom (remember The Shining room 237). I do not miss the phony greetings of the hotel girls “Bye. Have a nice day.” I do not miss the horrid smell in the breakfast place. It was so disgusting that even though it was complementary, many mornings I gave it a miss and ate elsewhere.

I surely do not miss America. I spent about 5 years there. I do not have a single fond memory of that country.

Memories

I got this photo frame on my bike ride this morning. It was lying down on a heap of garbage by the side of the road. It was so touching, I could not leave it there. It is disturbing to think that someone could let go of such a precious memory.

I obviously do not know who these people are. I do not want to know. To me they just represent a story, a story of a man and woman in love. Such an eternal story.

From the black and white photo it seems that they must be old now. I wonder how their love story blossomed. I hope it bore beautiful fruits with many children. I hope life treated them kindly. I hope they are still alive and happy, surrounded by many, many grandchildren.

These two particular individuals will soon recede to oblivion. But the concept they embody will live forever.

A woman and a man, in love with each other.

Leaving Kolkata

It has been almost 25 years since I left Kolkata, halfway through my life. A kid born by the time I left would be the same age as me when I left.

And what a life I left behind! Friends, fun, frolic. For what? To save my family from poverty? Or for the glamour of going abroad. For the lure of the unknown world out there. For sheer peer pressure. Everyone was going abroad. So I had to. I guess a little bit of all.

But whatever it was, it was unnecessary to accept that hardship for the little gain I got in return. Yes I saved some money, yes I saw the world, yes I learned to speak good English. But I could achieve all of these without leaving Kolkata permanently. Seven years I spent abroad was a waste. I do not have a single fond moment of those seven years. Only good thing that happened was I got a good education during my MSc and that experience really enriched my life. I would not be the same person had I not studied abroad.

I remember the Kolkata I left behind so vividly. The exciting years of pagers and cell phones and the first personal computers. Telephone booths everywhere. We had some disposable income to spend on us, a beautiful city that we could call home, a few devoted friends that were madly in love with each other. It was just the life to look for. The job was fun, the leisure even more fun. Weekdays passed by quickly absorbed in fun work. Weekends flew by even faster with food, drinks, movies and long walks with friends.

There were book fairs in Maidan and office tours to Maithon and weekend getaways in Bardhaman. There was love from Anjan, rebellion from Nachiketa and sadness from Suman. There were big eyed, baby faced, compliant girls like Shilpa Shetty and Urmila Matondkar. There were movies like Bombay, Raja and Rangeela. And we had our whole life ahead of us.

Did I live it well? I guess I tried.

No fear.

No guilt.

No remorse.

Diya's Diary Entry on CoronaVirus

I was browsing through my old photos last night and I came across this diary entry from my daughter’s scrap book, written last March at the beginning of the lockdown.

What an uplifting message from a seven year old.

Of course it is endearing to me because it was written by my daughter. But even disregarding that, it is very inspiring.

But it is also heart wrenching to think what these kids must have gone through in the last one year, cooped up in our two bedroom flat, not being able to go anywhere, not being able to play freely, constantly being on alert. The pandemic has robbed them of their childhood.

And this is nothing compared to what many others have gone through, people lost their loved one, not been able to be with them at their last moment, people lost their jobs, business, livelihood. So many successful businesses closed up, so many innovative startups died at infancy. It was just a litany of endless misery.

Some people tried to find a silver lining in all of these. “It was good for the environment, pollution has gone down, traffic has gone down, people are spending more time with themselves and their families”. I applaud their optimism. But I myself cannot find any solace in any of these. To me this pandemic is just unadulterated suffering, the worst calamity of my lifetime. There is nothing good that can be found in this endless misery.

I really, really hope that Diya will not have to endure anything like this again in her lifetime.