Unheard...

My life till now, with friends who with me stand,
Hear me out and lend me a hand.

My family who suffers my sorrow,

And yet, gives me hope for the morrow.

I have my ups and downs and I continue to laugh,

That is all, a game of whether the glass is full or half.

I am who I am and laugh, I always will,

I am glad that I don't need to pray to laugh or to have a strong will. 

I build and strengthen my soul.

I presume, that is life's sole goal. 

To resolutely stand, no matter what.

To believe in truth, no matter the cost.

Hope is a fickle friend,

It cannot be trusted.

Trusted though it cannot be, it is all that remains.

And it is all that can be trusted to remain. 

I come through life, learning at every stage, 

Turning a page as I (gracefully) age. 

First there were only my mother and father,

Who doted on me and made me believe in me.

Then I had a few friends, always there for each other. 

We talked and laughed and fought, but we helped each other see. 

It is time to turn to the next chapter.

A page is all that needs to be turned. 

So difficult, it refuses to be turned.

A second hand it needs, to close the previous one,

For what is to come in the next chapter, 

One needs the other, to remember what in the previous has been learned.

I yearn to speak and be understood.

My friends who understood me over the years,

I find, my words fall on deaf ears. 

Confusion sets in and I wonder,

Why can they not hear me?

Realization dawns, it is not they but only me.

The ear that will hear the unspoken,

The touch that will mend the broken.

I say so much and yet I do not utter a word,

The dream is such, I never go unheard.

It's always the last place you look...

A few years ago, I had read a very witty reply to the line - "It's always the last place you look..." when you are looking for something and can't find it. The reply was,"Of course it is the last place you look. Why would you continue to look for it after you have found it?" A reply that in the last couple of weeks has found meaning in my life, twice!

I bought a pair of sunglasses and wore them out of the store. It felt great to wear a really nice pair of sunglasses that I had wanted to have for a long time. Also, they looked great on me! Now, within an hour of the purchase I am to have lost them in a mall. A half hour after leaving the mall, I come to realise that I do not have my sunglasses and I run back to the mall. Nobody seems to have seen them and the possibility of them having stolen is low since it was a very quiet day. All the same it was difficult to look for them in a huge store, where I had been browsing for a while. My sister-in-law who was with me, asked me to replay what I had done and where I had been. After doing that for a long time and going crazy with worry in the meantime fearing the loss of such an expensive pair of sunglasses, I pray for a miracle. Suddenly, I get a vague image in my head of some t-shirts and some connection of those t-shirts to my sunglasses. I go over to that section and surely, there resting between a pile of t-shirts are my sunglasses. In order to find my size t-shirt in that pile, I had neatly placed my sunglasses and had forgotten to pick them up. As someone who prides himself (maybe a bit too much) in being systematic, these things do tend to happen to me often. Quite interesting, but I say that the system needs a tune up once in a while. 

A couple of weeks hence, I lose the same pair of sunglasses. This time, in my own home! I come back home yesterday while having those over my eyes and remember not being able to see the keyhole properly because it's already quite dark and I am too lazy to take the sunglasses off my eyes. Today morning, of course, I can't find them. Since yesterday I was alone at home, so I couldn't even blame my parents or the maid for having misplaced them. My frustration at myself tames itself because admitting to being so absent-minded takes some serious effort. Again, following the advice of my sister-in-law, I try to replay my actions in my head and I just remember opening the door, almost blind. I had grocery bags in my hand at that time and so I try to see if I kept those sunglasses in the bags and put them in the fridge. Now, that happens to a lot of people and that would have been soothing to my conscience if that was the case, but it was not to be so. I searched the entire flat, even places where I thought it was impossible for the pair of sunglasses to be. But, I couldn't find them. 

I was sure that they were in the flat somewhere and so ultimately, I resigned to the fact that I am not going to find them. I took my messenger bag and took out all my stuff from it and went to keep it at its usual storage place and voila, there it was. My pair of sunglasses. I have no idea how they got to be there but surely they were there. I had found them. Perhaps a ghost placed them there but honestly, I have no recollection whatsoever of having placed them there. In my search for these sunglasses, I also happened to tidy up the flat a bit. But for sure, it was the last place that I would have thought to look!

My Oakley Crosshair

India General Elections 2014: A true dilemma if there was ever one!

It is, but in another week or so, the day to cast my vote and exercise my right as an Indian citizen. A citizen of a country that is the largest democracy in the world. It is definitely the largest democracy in theory and although I do exaggerate, possibly even the largest anarchy at times. 

I will cast my vote for the first time ever and there is a huge sense of responsibility. Even pride, to know that even my single vote will count towards choosing a government for this country. There are, nevertheless, the naysayers and the pessimists who will continue to ridicule the process and call it a sham. I am not oblivious to the reality, but I choose to believe. There are millions who have chosen to vote and there are still those who have and will choose not to vote. Their choice not to vote is beyond my comprehension. They will not even vote 'NOTA', if they do not find anyone worth their vote. It is important. It is crucial. It is more important than anything that you might plan to do.Please vote!

This is certainly not a post to appeal to everyone to vote but about my own confusion about who to vote for. Barring all other considerations, my only consideration right now is to look at the performance of candidates that I have in front of me. Now, this should usually be the primary consideration, but in India, people have several other considerations that they consider at times to be more important than the actual ability of the person and his performance.

The Republic of India has been headed by one of the most intelligent economists of our time; who in fact was responsible for opening up India's economic borders in 1991 and then helming it as a Finance Minister to grow year on year. This same brilliant mind being the head of the government could not save the country from superlative inflation, a decline in growth and a terrible weakening of the Indian Rupee. Five years, out of the last ten, I was living outside of India and all I heard for the first few from people from different countries was about the miraculous growth story of India. However, in the last 3 years or so, the shine of India's growth story has certainly faded and people did no longer talk so passionately about the growth opportunities in India. Now, is the current Prime Minister Mr.Manmohan Singh solely responsible or is the government as a whole, to be held responsible? I do not know. The Prime Ministerial candidate that the Indian National Congress has chosen is Mr.Rahul Gandhi, who has still to prove himself capable of any office and to directly appoint him at the head of such a vast and complicated democracy is an extremely frightening prospect. What I do know is that I cannot vote for a political party which had the most number of, and the largest scams India has ever had and which also led to the current frustrating economic situation. 

The second political party has Mr.Narendra Modi as its Prime Ministerial candidate. He has been touted a wonder solution to India's economic problems. It's being said that if he comes to power, he will be able to turn around the economic situation of the country. This is based on his performance in the state of Gujarat, of which he has been a Chief Minister for more than a decade. The statistics put forth are impressive and so are the stories that are told about his governance. If his success can be replicated at the national level, then I am surely in for a wonderful time if he comes to power. However, an intelligent reader would have noticed that I am still skeptical (this is for those who have not picked it up). I cannot trust his economic policies when he has no international experience. As the head of a state in India, he has certainly helped to develop that state but would he able to do that for the entire country when he is in a position that is inherently an international one? Does he have enough economic experience to deal with international economics issues? Even if he does have some brilliant economists to advise him, will he have the capability to understand their advise? 

He belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is strongly against FDI in Retail. I wonder if they have actually analysed the effects of this FDI in Retail. How many of them have actually understood the economics of FDI and its effects? Be it economics or be it life in general, it is always the policy of 'survival of the fittest' that is followed. If inefficient businesses go out of business because of more efficient business models, what is the harm? It is finally the Indian consumer that is going to benefit from more efficient business models. How, you ask? Well, the first reason is - cheaper prices! A discussion on the advantages and the disadvantages of FDI in Retail can be discussed ad nauseum, but my basic point remains - have these people, who oppose the FDI in Retail, understood it at all?

The third party to choose from this year is the Aam Aadmi Party, which started off and is still touted to be the political party of the common man and who are not corrupt and who will always fight for the issues of the common man. This party is supposedly made up of all well-educated people and some of them have given up their jobs to do something for the nation. These actions are very admirable and if I could, I would have loved to be a part of such a movement. This party in fact got elected to power in Delhi and their leader became the Chief Minister of Delhi. However, he also resigned in 49 days! Yes, he had his reasons to resign. But, those 49 days seemed like a comedy show. Their actions were haphazard and there seemed to be chaos. I might have perhaps voted without any guilt for this party, had it not been for this fiasco. I am now afraid to trust this man. Mr.Arvind Kejriwal has become the party and not just its face. Ergo I am afraid to trust this party.

I am really not sure who to vote for. It is an extremely difficult choice. More so difficult because I am going to cast my vote for the first time this year. My duty towards my country and my dream to see a wonderful India, cause me to think harder. For people, perhaps I am too idealistic. If you think so, so be it. If you are not, then please vote being a realist. Vote only for the betterment and the development of the country. It is crucial!