Reservations

I felt that though ter wer mind boggling number of posts on reservations this forward captured the essence of it well...

OLD VERSION...

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant's a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.


MODERN VERSION
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant's a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house. Medha Patkar goes on a fast along with other grasshoppers demanding that grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter. Amnesty International and Koffi Annan criticize the Indian Government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the grasshopper. The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the grasshopper (many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace for prompt support as against the wrath of God for non-compliance). Opposition MP's stage a walkout.Left parties call for "Bharat Bandh" in West Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry.CPM in Kerala immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among ants and grasshoppers.

Lalu Prasad allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Indian Railway Trains, aptly named as the 'Grasshopper Rath'.

Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the Prevention of Terrorism Against Grasshoppers Act [POTAGA]", with effect from the beginning of the winter.

Arjun Singh makes Special Reservation for Grass Hopper in educational Insititutions & in Govt Services.

The ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government and handed over to the grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV.

Arundhati Roy calls it "a triumph of justice". Lalu calls it 'Socialistic Justice'. CPM calls it the 'revolutionary resurgence of the downtrodden' Koffi Annan invites the grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly.

Many years later...The ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi billion dollar company in silicon valley.100s of grasshoppers still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere in India ...

Hunger

http://www.worldpressphoto.nl/index.php?option=com_photogallery&task=view&id=623&Itemid=137&bandwidth=low(Photo of the year 2006)This photograph possibly conveys more than what i can say.Nervethless i still want to pen a couple of my thoughts on the subject also.

Hunger i think has'nt spared any living soul in this universe. Every living creature on this planet from the tiny ant to the mighty elephant, from the new born infant to the old paralysed man, from the mighty kings to the humble slave, would have suffered from the pangs of hunger at least sumtime or the oder in their life. Life is cruel most of the times. I vividly recall one of my friends often describing the scene he saw in the streets of kolkotta. A young urchin suffering from the pangs of hunger scavenging the dustbin on the street for any leftovers and in strak contrast well to do kid of the same age wasting food in the Big Mac.I think now you would agree with me that life is cruel.

Sometimes i wonder at the consience of the photographer. How can he take such cruel shots? Did he do anything at all to alleviate the kid's suffering? but who am i to question his conscience when i myself sometimes cannot answer the tug of my own conscience.Sometimes i wish i can stick to my promises of not wasting food . Promises that i make unto myself after seeing such moving pictures...But i am in a dilemna.I wasted my curry today afternoon when i found a strand of hair in it.Should i have eaten the curry ignoring the extra ingredient or should i have behaved in the civilised way i did just dumping the entire curry into the dustbin??? would that curry be consumed by some street urchin just that like the one that my friend happened to see?? would that have been his only meal for that day?? Can i justify that action unto myself?

Wayback when i was studying in a school in a christian convent we used to have a scheme which tried to help hungry street urchins. We had to give some rice howmuchever we can from a fistful to a sack of grains and it used to be distributed to the night shelters where these kids frequented. The community kitchens undertaken by different religions also deserves a pat on the back. The DOS(dahl,oil n sugar) scheme that runs in my town which collects the above 3 essential ingredients from the donors and hands them over to charitable organisations.If only more ppl culd come up wid such innovative ideas the world wuld definetely not be a hungry place anymore.But then how wuld we deal with the middle men who loot away the food material that is supposed to reach the hungry?

Can Hunger ever be eliminated? Can all kids eat their stomachfull without toiling and bending their backs for getting their rightful share of grub? when will a mother stop seeing the agony of her kid dying out of hunger?When will people stop begging for food?When will people stop fighting for food? Can any body answer these questions at all???

Reading a book

The experience of reading a book is a one which involves going through a lot of emotions.
The joy when you first get to buy it is unparalleled.It is sometimes hapiness that you have made your best ever investment , sometimes hapiness you have made a wise decision, sometimes a feeling of strong posession and eagerness to get your hands on the book and so many other undescribable feelings.

The sheer joy of smelling those pages and awaiting the climax and eagerly hoping that good always triumphs over evil so that you have the satisfaction of predicting the storyline is something that can be exhilarating.It is as if you hold the power in your hands to decide the destiny of those characters.Though it is illusionary i force myself to believe it is true.Glancing through the pages that just describe the scenarios and reading with fervour those pages that decide the course of the story and awaiting the end of the story is an oft process.

Delving into a bit of personal experience, I was a big reader of fiction until one day, when my dad out of the blue refused to get me any more ficiton, coz according to him i was always reading only sidney sheldon and Nancydrew. Thanks to him my horizon widened and now i read almost anything that i can lay my hands on. So i have completed books like The Fountain head, The rich dad poor dad, The Monk who sold his ferrari, From Pepsi to Apple,The Da vinci code and now read mags from the Film Fare to the Fortune.Though there is one exception A book which i was never able to complete and still trying to is the "God Of small things".

The most annoying thing however is to have someone disturb you while you are reading it like to have your mom call you for lunch or your siblings choosing that moment to pick up a fight or a friend calling you up for nothing at all. Even at that moment you sometimes display the patience of a wise sage so that you let them tell whatever they want without interrupting them so that you can getback to your book.I've had my brother taking advantage of many such situations.

Sometimes when you finish the book, on one hand you find relief that you have finally completed it and sadness on the other side as you are suddenly bereft of any book to read until you find another. In totem you experience almost all feelings to which you can give a name like joy that your hero is safe,hapiness that good have triumphed over evil, jealousy of the herione or the hero,hope that the book will have a sequel, adrenaline coursing through you when the events unfold towards the end, sadness if one of your favourite character dies and so on.

So In reading a book you experience a course of emotions if you allow yourself to be carried by it. When you stand afar from it and see you will learn a couple of lessons not to mention your vocabulary enrichment.(Pardon me if there are any grammatical or spelling mistakes as i am making a tall claim).Hope i have atleast tried in making you to plan to read a book. If you do read a book after going through this blog do tell me your experiences.

Classical signs of joblessness for a software engineer.

1)Trying to figure out the best possible playlist combination
2)Trying out the same playlist in winamp,real player,windows media player
3)Trying to look busy with a word document in front
4)Scrolling up and down the document if ur T.L or P.M passes by
5)Hit the intercom and catch up with all long last friends.
6)Check mails in outlook,yahoo,Gmail and yahoo.
7)Keep visiting all news sites like bbc.com,ndtv.com,ibnlive.com
8)Keep browisng eBay or rediff just checking on latest mobile and mp3 player prices
9)Keep orkutting visiting all scrapbooks known and unkown.
10)Keep sending messages to all colleagues urging for a cofee break
11)Make plans with friends about how to spend the evening or while away the weekend.
12)Keep walking to the cooler to sip water every few minutes
13)Use the internet @office to download latest ringtones.
14)Keep browsing your outlook for any old unread mails
15)Check out the latest film reviews.
16)Reading SantsBanta jokes.
17)Try to catch the latest gossip at office.
18)Keep disturbing everyone in the vicinity.
19)If no one is looking then try to doze a little and take a small nap.
20)writing blogs like this in office hours.

Stormy Days

Stormy Days..Those were the days i used 2 await with eagerness and sincerity and great fervour wayback during school days. The reason being obvious. Holidays used to be declared impromptu!!!!! Aw what bliss and glee it used to be then....Go outside in the rain and play in the muddy puddles with your chums, without a care about the world.Get hold of any scrap paper you could try out different shapes of sails.....and watch your heart float in pleasure when your sail travels the longest.When the last of the twilight fades get back home 2 mom's warm supper...

Life has it's own way of throwing suprises. Now as a young responsible working adult, I have come to hate the stormy days that i once used to adore.It means traversing the muddywaters,fighting with the autowallahas over the fare,navigating the traffic and getting in time to work. Eating cold packed lunches,and looking out of the window constantly with a longing pair of eyes hoping it would stop raining so that you can get back home early. Once in a while though the childishness tries to poesses you and you become adventuorous and try to venture out in the rain. At other times you get anxious enough that you try and check every other wheather bulletin around, with the same longing as in your childdays that holidays would be declared in your workplace. you start dreaming how you could sleep through the day catch up on backlogs that has been behind your mind for a while and do so many other things wishing it would rain a bit heavier...

Wonder what suprises will life have in store for me in stormy days to come....

Ah! what is there in a name? is on the lips of the vast majority in the universe!!!!Then why did i have to think so much about naming my blog????Wish the answer would itself be as simple as the question but alas.

Pondering on the title to be given, i finally settled on Gabble n GiBBER.It is just that when i am 2 enthusiastic over something i just Gabble n GiBBER away(Info courtesy my Frnds)so what is it that am i so excited about? Is it the blogging experience?or that some MNC has allocated some server space to MY Gabble n GiBBer?or is it that some unknown people read my blog and find it intresting or boring???n comment upon it?Or is it in hopes that my blog become one of the most widely read ones making me a hotshot!!!!Aw what farfetched thoughts??Such is the power of human mind constantly unravelling some thing or the other...

Whatever, i have put all all doubts to rest and finally choosen on Gabble n GiBBER, as that is what i want 2 do through blogging.Take my readers through the journeys in my brain and cross over n see if they make sense of my Gabble n GiBBER.In the Process try and understand my own thought process if i can.So hoping to Gabble n GiBBER from now on.Hope you enjoy it!!!!!!