Dhaincha Dhaincha!! - an another gobar-mint tale....

A few days ago, I was just reading ‘Dainik Jagran’ (its at least better than TOI) while having my breakfast and my eyes got struck on a headline on the front page. It read “Basmati se mehenga ‘dhainche’ ka beej”. It sounded strange enough to continue reading it. But before pouring in the details, let me first explain you that what does ‘dhaincha’ mean and how to pronounce this word which grabbed my attention.

We all must have heard braying of a donkey. In our local language, we call it ‘dhainchu-dhainchu’. Same is the way of pronouncing ‘dhaincha’. Dhaincha is actually a green manure which is used to improve the fertility of soil. Our government has decided to distribute it free of cost to our farmers for their welfare. Hats off to them for thinking at least something for our downtrodden peasants!

So, the news caught my attention because it is associated with U.P. Seed Development Corporation, the corporation in which my father is an engineer. Now let’s come to the point. The best of the Basmati rice is available in the market for Rs. 50-55 per kg. easily and the cost of seed of ‘Dhaincha’ never went above Rs. 19-20 mark. Our Agriculture Department had to buy this seed and it did it with the help of U.P.S.D.C.. As we know that our government has a knack of buying everything at a higher price so without blemishing their reputation, they bought it at a whopping price of Rs. 54 per kg.. So without any humongous calculations, we can say that 35 rupees from the tax deposited by us is wasted per kilogram purchase of this seed. Not only this, the government bought 1 lac quintal of the seeds. This means that there is a straight net loss of 35 crores in the transaction. I’m not sure that how much this step will raise the condition of the farmers but anyone can easily conclude that the scheme seems to be quite beneficial for the bureaucrats involved in it.

Our officials can easily gulp down figures in crores without bringing it in anyone’s notice but the highlight of this scam is that the amount of money went into their pockets is close to 200% of the money that should have been actually allotted for this work. I can also predict that sooner or later, an investigation will setup against the involved officers and nothing will happen after that because it won’t be much difficult for them to vomit 1-2 crore from their bellies and the investigating officers will also swallow it happily.

We all know that same is the story in all of the government departments of our country. Just visit the nearest electricity department and you will get to know the ground reality. So, the ground reality is that only 33% of the tax that we pay to our government is utilized properly for the benefit of the voters. This is an issue which everyone takes lightly. Neither the government tries to curb it effectively nor do we have the zeal to do so. Actually, we are totally responsible for it. Politicians don’t have corruption in their main agenda because the voters are not sensitive about it. We have the tendency to vote to a party who assure us to fulfill our own ‘selfish’ needs. Everyone wants reservation for his own caste/religion. Everyone wants to have a PM/CM/MP/MLA of his own caste or religion. No one thinks to vote for a party which will put our money in a better cause.

Not only this, we are the one who is strengthening the roots of corruption. If we are caught by a traffic policeman, then we have two options. Either pay a heftier fine that goes to the government or put a ‘Gandhiji ki photo’ in the pocket of ‘hawaldaar sahab’. Then the bigger share of ‘Gandhiji’ will reach the pocket of ‘bade sahab’. Everyone exercises the latter option for saving both time and money. Once, I tried the former option and after getting the unforgettable experience of the epic battle that I fought to submit the fine, I swear that the next time when I will find myself in such a situation, I will silently fill the hawaldaar sahab’s pocket with lakshmi ji.

Coming back to the scam, it seems to be a scheme that will bring prosperity to the section of our society which really wants to prosper. So, what's wrong in it! Our tax payers don’t have much time to think about such scams because such ‘small-scale’ digestion doesn’t seem to effect their own digestion. Our farmers have an experience of 63 years of living as the poorest and neglected part of our society and they are quite used to it. Our politicians are not affected by it because it doesn’t affect their vote-bank and everyone knows that they are the one who are primarily involved in such things. But one thing I can say for sure, if we can somehow stop the improper utilization of this 67% of the money, then the face of the common man will change for sure.

In the end, here is a question for you to ponder upon. Who is the donkey in this ‘dhaincha’ scam or the other scams like this? The politicians and the bureaucrats who can easily defeat a donkey in terms of digestive power or the so called common man who isn’t even bothered about whether his money is utilized in a right way or not, or the peasants who are carrying the load of more than a billion ‘donkeys’ on their own shoulders and still can do nothing except braying. Think about it and decide on your own.

Let’s work for a better tomorrow!

12 Random Memories From My Pensieve

1. I did my first deliberate bunking in class I. Our English teacher was 'e^∞ ' times strict and the only thing that scared me more than her was the baba that used to kidnap `children-who-never-finish-their-food’. On Friday, she used to have two periods and it was my weekly habit to suffer from a xyz disease on that day (till my parents figured out that I am quite prone to diseases on Fry-day).

2. My first crush- class II. Our mathematics ma’am was just sooo adorable. I was her favourite student and she liked me a lot. But it was my fault; I misunderstood her likeness as her love. After a few years, I came to know that she is in love with some other senior teacher who was already married. My dreams shattered! Sheesha ho ya dil ho aakhir toot jaata hai…. :’(

3. My second crush-class III. It took me a year to recover from the past one-sided-relationship and this time it was with a girl. We used to sit together and she had a pretty addictive smile. This time I rejected her. Reason- she had dandruff in her hair. Later, I realised that the dandruff content in my hair is much more than hers. But by the time I realised it, it was too late. :(

4. When I was in class V or VI, I asked a girl in a free period, “Toilet chalegi???” Unluckily, there was pin drop silence in the class while I uttered those words. Everyone was staring at me. I think it was the childhood innocence because I realised the reason of their stares after 2-3 years. Nevertheless, it was my first and last act of bravery.

5. I am one of those talented ones who learned to ride the bicycle twice. I learned it firstly in K.G. and then somehow I forgot how to ride it. Then, I learned it again in 2^nd or 3^rd. Does anyone else have such an experience?

6. I was the first in the class who had an inbuilt stopwatch in the watch. It was quite a rage at that time. We developed a game out of it and used to play it between the periods. Those small things are missing from the life now.

7. I was shouting in the class like mad and a teacher from other class came and gave a tight slap on my left cheek. She was prepared to give a tighter one on my right but in defence, I held her hand in mine (not in a romantic manner). She took my defence as an offence and gave me around 5-6 slaps with full force. Since then, I have never held a hand of any woman or girl in my life (not even in a romantic manner).

8. I was crazy for cricket in childhood. I used to read every issue of `Cricket Samrat’ and had all the issues from 1997 to 2003. Collecting center fresh cricket cards was the in-thing at that time and we used to have setting with the shop-keeper to let us choose the favourite cards. I had hundreds of them. 93 numbered Wasim Akram, 7 numbered Mohd. Azharuddin and 18 numbered Richard Hadlee were the rarest of cards and my prized possessions at that time. These days I think Pokémon cards have replaced them (might be an out-dated information).

9. I had all the cricket gears of my own when I was in class IV or V. Helmet, gloves, pads, bat, wrist band.... u name it and I had it. Though, I didn't have the guard but luckily, I never fell into such a crisis situation. We had tournaments during the vacations and used to distribute trophies (made of wood) to the MoM, MoS, best batsman, best bowler etc. etc.

10. I used to smoke those sweet cigarettes with pride and pretend that the smoke is coming out of my mouth. I think we all had a taste of it. Anyone knows whether it is available these days or not??

Warning: Cigarette smoking is injurious to health and can cause cancer.

11. In class V & VI, my hands (along with hands of a few others) were full of Rakhis on Rakshabandhan and I was very happy to have so many sisters. Silly me!

12. I hated Biology a lot and never studied it seriously even during the Xth boards. But there was a chapter in it in which I scored full marks. All the diagrams and definitions were practiced to perfection. Yup, you guessed the chapter-name rightly!

PS:

1. I do remember the names of above mentioned teachers & friends, but I don’t want to embarrass them. So better let it remain a secret. ;)

2. All those who feel offended can take this post with a pinch of salt. (I think ‘only’ is more suitable than ‘all’ in this sentence. But why take chances.) ;)

3. Those crushes are not the actual type of crushes. Actually, I didn’t know the actual parameters of evaluation then. So, there was nothing serious in it.

4. Some other facts which are not suitable for all age groups of our society are omitted to save my blog from getting an ‘A’ certificate.

5. Any dispute arising out of or in connection with this blog post shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of High Court, Lucknow bench only. :P

Hey GOD, do you exist (or not)???

I had no need for that hypothesis-Laplace.

Hmm….for someone like me, this is not a great topic to start with, I think I can write better (or less worse) on boys & girls…..but frankly speaking, boys don’t excite me and girls are even more complex than god…..so lets come out of our comfort zone(if we have) & lets talk about THE GOD…….

I want to clear it out that firstly I’m not an atheist, I think I’m agnostic atheist (if something like that exists). I’m still searching for the answers about god & my opinion about god can change in the future. Secondly, it’s not a crime to be atheist. A few months ago, a friend of mine just for time-pass asked me, “Do you believe in God?” & I said, “No”. He looked at me as if I’m one of the 26/11 terrorist & my punishment of saying a “no” is to be hanged till death. I don’t rule out the power of faith & the fact that the religions give mental strength to many but the logical part of my mind doesn't allow me to have faith in him. At least, it doesn't allow me to have a perception about the god as it’s given in our holy books (don’t have much knowledge about them).

Now a days, science has developed a lot….it has given answers of most of the questions that the mankind has asked, but with every answer, arises another hundred questions & still science patiently tries to solve the mystery of our beautiful nature. A few centuries ago, we were not well equipped to tell how the basic natural things occur & then we connected our ignorance with god. We didn't know how this never ending universe was made (we still don’t) so we said that the GOD created it. We didn't know how the earthquake & cyclone occurs, so we thought that it’s the GOD’s way to show his anger on us. There are many questions which are still unanswered like ‘What’s the meaning of life?’, ‘Where did time and space come from?’ and a zillion others. And the answers of all these zillion questions are related to him in some way or the other. But for me, our inability to provide a natural explanation to some observations is due to our ignorance of the surroundings & it doesn't explain the existence of god.

If god is someone who created (deliberately) this universe then he must stand above space and time. He should be having a mind that can outlay the idea of this universe and thus has to be a complex one. But then, who created the god?? It’s quite logical that none can create him & if he can exist on its own then why can’t our universe (which has to be less complex than god)??? If he can exist without a cause, then I think the laws of science can also exist without all these w/h questions.

I am perfectly fine with the idea (till now) that god is the initial source of energy from which this universe came into existence and thus the credit of all the matter and the energy of today goes to the almighty. But for me, his role ended there only, after that whatever happened is due to the simple (or complex) laws of Physics.

God is pictured as the supreme-being, he is having the ultimate powers and none can be better than him. But I don’t agree that there can be someone in this world which doesn't have a scope to improve (including the almighty). There is at least a single scope of improvement in this world & there must be a thing whose inclusion/exclusion will make this universe better.

A lot of unworthy things are happening on the name of god. The every other pretending-to-be-gyaani type baba is using the name of god for doing all the illegal things in his backyard. A lot of uneducated people in the world are doing insane things as a consequence of blind faith over god. People are killing each other just for the sake of proving the superiority of their own religion. I don’t think that god created religion to have such consequences & if it’s the human who changed the meaning of religion for their own greed then why doesn't he stop such people???

Once I asked a question related to god to a priest who visited my home. He said that the god is mysterious and I need to have a ‘divine experience’ to realize the power of god. If the god is really such a mysterious entity, then what’s the surety that our ancestors were totally correct about his perception??? And how can we be so sure that the words of Bible, Koran, Vedas or any other holy books are the words of god???

Now you can have a belief on god if you ever had such a ‘divine experience’, and you can definitely share it with us but I doubt that I will trust your words but I can ensure that I will surely give it a thought.

Thus, I think god is just an unsatisfactory answer (for me) of all the questions which are unanswerable at this context of time and instead of believing that he is the answer of all such questions, we should try to learn more about the world and try to have our own views about it. Modern science can explain many natural phenomenon without the need of god and just give it a few years; it will surely bring a clearer picture in front of us.

I know that maybe we will never be able to find out the real god….or may be we are not meant to…..or maybe it’s within us. But till then, we all are free to perceive him as we wish to. We just want a happy life for us and for our neighbours & if we can get happiness and peace by having a belief on him then we should continue practicing our belief.

Have a happier tomorrow!

PS:

1. I referred to god as ‘he’, ‘his’ etc. I just did it to save myself from writing ‘he/she’, ‘his/her’ kind of things. I had no intentions to hurt any human (or inhuman) sentiments at all.

2. The definition of god may vary from person to person. I just tried to express my views on a general perception of god.

3. I don’t believe in god but that doesn't mean that I am a traitor or I want to demolish temples & mosques. They are very much needed to be safe for peace & to save our culture. It’s just that I am trying (pretending) to think logically…..

4. After writing such a long post, I read this article and I think you should read it (and the further links) too. It provided me some very good reasons to believe in god. It might be showing just a side of the true picture but it will surely improve our knowledge.