Story of an incredible journey

December 18 2010,sunday

My exams were over and I had already planned a long holiday. I love mountains and my friend Ashish lives in Haldwani, so Nainital was my preferred destination.
I , instead of going by train or bus  chose to go for a 300 km long drive alone. my santro CNG was ready . I started and my ipod started playing dil chahta hai songs to make my journey easier and enjoying.

After 6 hours drive I was close to Haldwani. it was hilly forest area and is no wonder to see wild animals wandering on the road. I was driving slowly as I was tired too.
 Suddenly I felt something strength in the sound of forest. I was thrilled inside as it was my first long journey passing inside a jungle. it was early evening time and the shadow of trees has made it like pseudo night. and then I heard a slow roar , not terrifying in strength but the very fact that it was a roar was enough to chill my bones. Terrified,  instead of rushing I stopped. and then what I saw stole my breath for a few seconds. There was a whole pride of lions appearing on the road. not just one but three lioness . Strangely they were neither crossing the road, nor were in an attacking mode. They were just staring at my car which made my fear more intense. Then my over optimistic inner-self tried to calm me down. It told me that I am safe inside car. May be they are just enjoying the road view. but then I was little surprised and shocked when I saw another smaller figure in that group. It was a cub that was bleeding on its front left leg. Probably it fell down into some small pit. The lioness was making a strange but not terrifying gesture. If it was shown by a human, that gesture was certainly friendly and more precisely asking for help. But that was a big cat. and no comparison there.
My mind started wondering what is going to happen to me now and then it stopped working as the herd was coming closer to my car. The lioness was giving slow roars and raising her right front leg and was close enough that she could directly look in to my eyes. my blood dried and I was sunk deep in to fear. But then suddenly something strange happened to me. I just remembered the old story of lion with injured leg and the man who helped him. But that was a story, it doesn't happen in real life. Before I could think further the one lion started knocking at my door. I knew that they can easily break into car or break it or send me directly into valley or may be it's a hungry family and a ready to eat material is being served here as me. But I guided my ongoing thoughts, unlocked the car and opened the door of backside. the lioness came carrying  her cub by her mouth and put it on the back seat and again stared in to my eyes and I could read the need for help. I was surprised not getting attacked yet. That was the most hilarious moment of my life. The other lioness sat at that very place , looked at me and then turned her head to road as giving me indication that come back here, I will wait.
I , understanding the situation rushed to the next town Bilaspur there I inquired about a veterinary doctor. Hills are not so developed to keep a veterinary doctor in every town. But I realized that I was in forest area and forest office must have some help. I rushed to the forest office but was stopped at a check post. to add to my worries when they saw a cub in my car they immediately came to arrest me. I understood they are not trusting me so I ran over and broke the check post. I entered in to the office of forest officer and asked for help. To my (and the cub's) luck a doctor was there and he rushed to my car. The cub was very much in pain. Two more assistants came and slowly took the cub inside.  Then it was treated and a small cover of supporting  sticks were tied around the leg.

I got some relief. now there was another problem , the police came to arrest me but forest officer handled the situation telling them that I was helping not trafficking. But another issue, no body was going to believe my story and the officer insisted on keeping the cub there only. He could not believe that I was actually being waited for some 8 km away by a lion family. I was perplexed. I asked him to come with me and see himself but he denied. But suddenly came a hope, there was a lady forest officer who interrupted and asked to give me a chance. She was in mid twenties and her face was glowing with graciousness of a young lady. Her eyes was filled with sympathy .....so affectionate. I was allowed to go take the cub back to its family. It was getting dark and I was not sure about the condition I was going to face. but at least I was not alone. In 30 minutes I reached that place and was surprised to see the lioness sitting at same place. The lady officer looked at my face with disbelief . She was afraid and held my hand when I went on to open the door. I looked in to her eyes and assured her that it was alright. I opened the door and the lioness came closer. I don't know why but I came out of the car  forgetting about the danger. The lioness picked her cub and placed it out. the lion picked it up and went little away to reduce our fear. the lioness looked at me again and came closer and I felt the whiff of her breath on my face. However, this time I was not terrified . I touched her hair, the 4 ft and 120 kg giant cat was thanking me , and then she turned and got vanished in the dark forest. It was 750 pm already . I got back in the car. Raina (the lady officer) looked at me with fascination as she was astonished by absence of fear on my face. I smiled and drove back to the town.
This evening become most hilarious and cherished incidence of my life.
 I thought feeling to be communicated are not dependent on words or language..... just a look in to eyes conveys it all.

RTI Campaign

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ1yvrMDUMU&feature=player_embedded#
RTI (Right To Information) is the historical instrument that has empowered the common man to ask for what he deserves from the government for the tax he pays.  I want to talk about two factors that will enable its proper utilization.  

1. Increasing awareness about RTI in common man specifically in professionals of middle class 
2. Encourages govt. officials to positively take RTI applications and rewarding them for positive work

First of all, in common man, there is a feeling of mistrust and helplessness about the government. The ‘janta’ do not trust the public officials and is so sure about that they won’t do anything that they don’t even think about using tools like RTI. This feeling can be taken care by citing the success stories of RTI. Our intelligential and working middle class of doctors, engineers, teachers etc is so busy in its own world that they have alienated from rest of the world and also developed a feeling of helplessness. Firstly most of them do not vote so they think they won’t be heard by the govt. anyway and secondly they want to do something for society but don’t know how. They are also frustrated about idleness of municipalities and other govt. authorities, be it passport office or RTO. Once they realise he power of RTI, they can earn accountability from the public administration. People in software industry should use their online communities to popularise RTI and also provide information about its usage and importance. The HR officials should take initiatives in this regard as an employee will be happier if he is free from the burden of problems related to public authorities and also he would feel happier for being able to do something for the society.

Second point is that the RTI is taken as a pain or burden by government officials and of course they are to be blamed for their unscrupulousness. But here if we take a cooperative and persuasive approach, we can expect more positive responses from them. This way we won’t overburden them and also will not make them curse RTI. Even there should be some reward for a good work. One can send a letter of thanks of flowers for a major goal achieved.

I hope people will use this effectively. I have many success stories to share. One of my friends Agraj made his village hospital and Aaganbadi people work properly with the help of RTI. There are revolutionary changes brought about with the helpof RTI. Let not go this great initiative of the govt. in vain. Corrupt bureaucrats and politicians are trying hard to weaken it and if we don’t use it effectively, they may succeed in curtailing the only power the common man has after vote.

thought of the day

Choices we make each moment give direction to our life.

60 years of Republic, are we still uncivilised!

Today evening I went to see the India gate decorated with lights of tricolor and the beautifully illuminated Parliament. It was dark and the whole view was awesome. Here on Janpath, I saw a group of well dressed elites also enjoying the view. Suddenly, I noticed that one of them turned toward the corner of the road (Rajpath) where the cars (including mine) were parked, looked here and there and started relieving himself. I was suddenly taken aback. One don’t expect some elite to show such uncivilized behavior, at least not in front of India gate on Rajpath! I intended to stop him but I couldn’t do that because I knew that there is no “Sulabh Shauchalay”(public toilet) nearby. When I asked a local vendor about it he told “ye lawn hai na..jana hai to yahi kar lo” (Use this lawn for toilet).

In a moment, all my joy of that panoramic view and proud of 60 years of republic, transformed in the feeling of frustration and despair. Before like everyone else, I could have ignored it by saying “Hindustan ka kuch nahi ho sakta” or “Indians and well as their government are hopeless”, I decided to write this letter to the authorities as soon as I reached home. I wonder why all around the world Indians are so easily identified and branded as most uncivilized people. In India, talking about toilet is as taboo as talking about sex education. I wonder why! Such a basic necessity is so prejudiciously ignored as no one needs it. It’s not that Indians are uncivilized, it’s because government is not active in providing basic facilities and above this our civil society has also ignored it.

I request Delhi government to kindly make some arrangement in all public/tourist places. A mobile toilet would be a very logical solution in such posh areas like Janpath/India Gate considering the space problem in Delhi. Moreover, think about women, they can’t use this liberty also as men mostly do.

I wonder how in a country with woman president, woman speaker, woman leader of both ruling and opposition party has such apathy for woman! (not to forget that Delhi itself has a woman Chief minister)

Evolution of God

God, a term which is most difficult to define but exist, even before we, the Humans, came into existence. A word, mostly used by all and believed to exist even when how, what, who and where GOD is , is beyond our imagination. God is defined by nothing but ‘faith’. God exist only for we have faith in that supreme entity. We defined God as per our own convenience to make it easy for us to present all our grievance and wishes to, to ask those questions which no one has answers of, to have a sense of security that someone is there to take care of us, to bless us, to control this very world we live in, to punish daemons and to reward the righteous, to help the helpless and to give us luck and prosperity. If human is most splendid extraordinary superior creation of GOD, God is the most selfish creation of human.

The idea of God originated from the ignorance about this world. We had no idea why we exist, why the sun rise and sets, why the rain, thunder, storm is there, from where river, mountain, sky and the stars came and the ultimate mystery of Life and Death. This ignorance, which gave birth to fear, made us to derive the idea of an almighty: The God.

So all that we need, we ask God for it. In the prehistoric times, we found God in Nature. Our Gods were as simple as Fire-God, Rain-God, Sea-God and Wind-God. God is so beyond our conception that we simplified God in Human like forms. God existed even before Ram, Christ or Mohammad. We believe in God’s human incarnation or Avtar. Almost all religions have ‘Avatar’ or ‘Son of God’ or ‘prophets’. And here comes the religion. The Religion, which probably was not something that originated from the God, rather, the religion, which was man-made and which made the concept of God narrower and rigid. Some mighty people of the society defined the norms of society and imposed there definition of ‘God’ to the people. So as our society progressed, the God and the Religion, both became complex. New Gods got introduced as per the need of society. The idea of ‘God’ evolved further.

As we became a more sophisticated society, the selfish man started exploitation of the God and the religion. Then we needed reforms, and some enlightened souls gave us better ideas of God and religion. We needed to come out of this rigid concept of God as restricted by the dominant high classes. These reformers redefined religion and re-simplified the idea of God. The modern religions like Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism looked for simplified and less orthodox ideologies that came in the ancient religions as a result of selfish strategies and politicization of religion. The Protestantism, Zoroastrian, Confucianism and others forms also looked for maverick ideas.

As our knowledge of this world increased, we started questioning more the idea of God. The science became the answer to a lot of our questions but still the idea of God remained because many questions were still unanswered. God is a traditional idea and largely depend on faith. God is knowledge. The faith of humanity gives shape to the concept of God. May be God is also trying to tell people to think about what, who, where and how the God is. All we need to do is to look inside and think over. The quest for the God made me write this. There has to be some God, or how else will we get the solace in this world of mystery and misery. Let there be God. May God Bless all!