Happy Diwali


Happy Diwali! Unlike the last year there are no crackers for the background this time. But the feeling is better now.

(I clicked this Tirunelveli Twilight a few days back with a Nokia E63)

Lions, donkeys and angels

Agreed. I was quite busy with my job as well many other interesting things in life that I found it difficult to maintain my average monthly post rate; But the poor Internet connectivity in our country is the real culprit. Even right now I am not typing this live on pilanipix. I will have to take this in a pen drive and locate a good Internet centre to make this available to you.

Well, my mind is having a words-jam. Words-jam is not like the ones that come in those transparent glass bottles with tight lids and bright labels; it is like the traffic jam. There are thousands of words struggling hard to come out my head at the same time, mainly due to the congestion caused by this delay in my post. The past six weeks have been quite exciting. Before I forget, let me tell you about a sarcastic yet heavy statement I came across today -"Bureaucracy is a donkey manufacturing factory". Well, I could not get any meaning out of it until that gentleman gave the addendum, "It catches lions and creates donkeys out of them". It is in reference to the tough civil service exams that tries to get the best talent available to the manage our country's administration. And how over a period of time we fail to make the best use of this talented human resources, and end up turning these smart fellows into mediocre officials who close their eyes before opening their pens.

I too was supposed to be a lion when I was caught by the civil services exam two years back. It is a different matter that I am not sure whether they caught what they wanted. But, I am sure I have not yet been turned into a donkey!

I am happy to have come across a few who still remain fearless lions even after dozens of years of service. I interacted with some of them today; I felt proud to have been caught. This moment I feel like retyping my earlier post; exactly the same way I typed it a year back. There are a few good civil servants scattered here and there; And these are the ones who keep the system in tact without any implosion or explosion. As one of my bosses said, these are like the angels sent by God in very small numbers - but to the right places, at the right time. I shudder to think of a situation where such self-driven and self-motivated people are absent from the system. With such people around there is enough inspiration!

(October 14th, 2009)

The Queen’s Gambit (Review)

(Glad that my review got published in Readers Write  - Thank you so much Baradwaj Rangan! ) Streaming on Netflix and consisting of seven epi...