On my last birthday I bought a Nokia N79 and a being the gadget freak I am, on the same day had explored all the features of the new gizmo in my hand. The easy SMSing technique, social networking at the touch of a button, the high speed WiFi which actually helped me chat online to name a few, were the attractions to my new companion. Yes, it had almost become my raison d'etre. Listening to music on it for hours, watching my favourite videos and chatting with my friends and not to forget the tsunami of SMSs and calls.
Earlier this year i went to the great city of Kuala Lumpur. An amazing vacation for me and my parents, until 2 days before our departure. It was because I had seen a 40" Sony Bravia LCD television in one of the shops, the price of which was less than half it's cost in India. Those were the 2 most laboured days for my parents as I pestered them even during our lovely excursions to buy one. well, as always, they had to succumb to my demands. The day I got the LCD hung on my room's wall, my room was my home and my LCD my companion.
A similar thing happened when my brother brought a new laptop from The United States. My days were spent mostly watching movies and playing games on it. As a result of all this, people around me started calling me materialistic. My parents taunted me at every other occasion of my ignorance towards them or the spurt of my gadget love. However annoyed with it, I was a hard rock to crack and my obsession continued.
However, a pattern was being observed with this obsession. My heartfelt love for any of the gadgets did not last for more than a week or 2, after which I returned to my normal being. Spending umpteen amount of time with my family, having nice and sumptuous dinners with them without carrying my plate to my room to watch a movie on the new LCD, until a new gizmo was brought into my life.
We often call our selves or people around us materialistic. We often condemn the modern generation to be more affectionate towards the gadgets and the modern comforts than with the humans around them. But look inside and ask yourself a question, "Is it really true?". Do we really love things more than their makers? Are we more stifled when our TV goes awry than when the father who cared for us left?
Even today, when people spend a sedentary life, when mobile phone's battery runs out even before the Indian Government's 5 year plan (obviously the former is much more reliable), bluetooths are becoming a better jewellery than earrings, we care for the people around us. Even today, a person who works 14 hours a day, works with the soul hope that at the end of the day he will be able to sit down with a cup of coffee affectionately brewed by his wife. Yes even today, we are ready to spend a fortune for a moment of love with our friends and family.
I recently finished college and the last day was an emotional affair, with everyone promising to be in touch. Even I was promising everyone a meeting at least monthly or half-yearly, but in my heart I knew that the friendship would be a torpid affair now, with everyone complacently nestled into their jobs and life. Only after a few days, I was proved wrong and thankfully so. SMSs and calls from my friends greeted me quite frequently. We even met at every occasion we could, like birthdays and any of my friends celebrating their success. How can I call such friends materialistic? They spared time for me even from the busiest of their schedules.
Think twice before echoing the nostrum that people have become MATERIALISTIC. Would your newly bought Mobile Phone have been of any worth if your friends wouldn't have SMSed you or called you? Would the newly bought laptop be your love if you weren't able to chat with your friends on it? Would the LCD you bought be fascinating if you couldn't watch your favourite movie with your family on it?
Such small moments still make the so-called materialistic world go around. The people in it still from the essence of it. Love is still the notion to live and the blood that runs in our veins is still filled with care for those around us.
Just take out time from your busy lives and look around. You will still notice A couple holding hands, A loud laugh from a 1 year old, A mother playing with her daughter, A father carrying his son on his shoulders, A son sharing a happy moment with his parents and a world full of love. Just look around.
As we say
Somethings never change
So will the love in the world. :)
Value what you have and more than that, value whom you have.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
Common Wealth games!! Are we doing our bit??
A major hit among the media since the last 1 year has been a conundrum, perhaps the biggest one after "will India become a super power", "will India be able to host The Common Wealth Games, 2010?". Well I have a question for all the critics on this subject, why do we doubt anything that India takes initiative for? Why is there always a question "will India be able to do it?".
Since the last 1 year, I haven't read any article in any of the leading newspapers about the projects completed, not even a single article singing of the accomplishment of delhi metro and not even a single writing exemplifying the achievements made so far.
All I could come across was that Projects haven't met deadlines, the roads are dug up, leakage of roofs and even a report saying that the delhi metro was delayed by 4 minutes, disrupting the life of passengers. Haven't the fool of a writer realised or has simply thought it best to ignore the fact that the same metro has actually brought those very same passengers' lives on the track and made commuting so easy that no one thinks twice about travelling into areas like Chandini Chowk or Cannaught Place, which earlier were a nightmare for the commuters? Has that very same writer forgotten the that India actually won the bid for The common wealth games against the most slated winners, Ontario, canada? Has he also forgotten that India is actually only the second asian country, after Kuala Lumpur to host the games?
A recent survey by a Canadian University reveals that the negativity surrounding an event actually hampers the its progress, while a single positive accomplishment accelerates it. I remember once when I was a child, my father had invited a few of his friends and their families over for dinner and my mother was supposed to cook for them. My mother, quite adept at cooking, consented easily. She cooked the usual stuff, rajma, vegetables and chapatis. When she had finished cooking, she tasted the vegetables she had prepared and to her utter astonishment, they were tasteless. The guests had started to arrive and she was in a dilemma as to what should be done. My father, being an intelligent man he is, tasted the rajma and exclaimed them to be the best he had ever tasted. Even me and my brother agreed with him. This gave my mother the thrust she needed and she made the best vegetables she had ever prepared.
I am not asking the media or the public to simply ignore the nepotism, stigma, corruption and simple incapability of our politicians to do even a single thing without stacking their personal accounts, but to give an equal attention to the accomplishments made. I am not asking the people of this country to be a part of this inveiglement for the athletics, but a little support as responsible citizens will be enough.
Last week, taking a stroll along the road behind my apartments, I noticed a girl, driving an SUV, rolled down her window and threw an empty bottle on the road. I am pretty confident, she would be one of the strongest critics of our politicians, their corruption and pruriginious mannerisms, but has she done her bit? Being an educated person (she might have such an assumption about her), did she give it a thought to keep the bottle to herself and through it away in the dustbin when she found one?
A teacher who tells the parents constantly not to compare their child with other children, as every child has his/her own special capability, near the coffee machine blabbers about how China impeccably held the Olympics or how London is already prepared for the 2012 Olympics, depicting Indian Common Wealth Games as a low-achieving child, sitting in the corner, watching all the other children taking their degrees grimacing at him.
Last week, in Times of India, I read Chetan Bhagat's article asking the Indian Citizen's to boycott the games. As adept a writer he might be (though I seriously doubt that), the article written was a disgrace for any Indian. His moral skills and truthfulness were quite exposed during the whole 3 Idiots episode, depiciting him a soul in severe search for attention but soon discovered the gaffe in his plan. A boycott of the games will not only leave India disgraced and drained of all self respect, but the primary purpose behind it i.e. to teach a lesson to our corrupt leaders will not be met. They have already raked in the moolah and stuffed their Swiss accounts. Believe me, it is the last of their priorities to hold the games successfully and even lower in their list lies the act of putting India's best foot forward. It is now upto us to bring the best of out of India by doing our bit. By not littering around, being humble to the foreign tourists who might ask us for a direction or two and the foremost is to, not criticize our preparations to the extent of defacing it.
You do your bit and let others do their's.
Hoping to have the best Games ever.
Since the last 1 year, I haven't read any article in any of the leading newspapers about the projects completed, not even a single article singing of the accomplishment of delhi metro and not even a single writing exemplifying the achievements made so far.
All I could come across was that Projects haven't met deadlines, the roads are dug up, leakage of roofs and even a report saying that the delhi metro was delayed by 4 minutes, disrupting the life of passengers. Haven't the fool of a writer realised or has simply thought it best to ignore the fact that the same metro has actually brought those very same passengers' lives on the track and made commuting so easy that no one thinks twice about travelling into areas like Chandini Chowk or Cannaught Place, which earlier were a nightmare for the commuters? Has that very same writer forgotten the that India actually won the bid for The common wealth games against the most slated winners, Ontario, canada? Has he also forgotten that India is actually only the second asian country, after Kuala Lumpur to host the games?
A recent survey by a Canadian University reveals that the negativity surrounding an event actually hampers the its progress, while a single positive accomplishment accelerates it. I remember once when I was a child, my father had invited a few of his friends and their families over for dinner and my mother was supposed to cook for them. My mother, quite adept at cooking, consented easily. She cooked the usual stuff, rajma, vegetables and chapatis. When she had finished cooking, she tasted the vegetables she had prepared and to her utter astonishment, they were tasteless. The guests had started to arrive and she was in a dilemma as to what should be done. My father, being an intelligent man he is, tasted the rajma and exclaimed them to be the best he had ever tasted. Even me and my brother agreed with him. This gave my mother the thrust she needed and she made the best vegetables she had ever prepared.
I am not asking the media or the public to simply ignore the nepotism, stigma, corruption and simple incapability of our politicians to do even a single thing without stacking their personal accounts, but to give an equal attention to the accomplishments made. I am not asking the people of this country to be a part of this inveiglement for the athletics, but a little support as responsible citizens will be enough.
Last week, taking a stroll along the road behind my apartments, I noticed a girl, driving an SUV, rolled down her window and threw an empty bottle on the road. I am pretty confident, she would be one of the strongest critics of our politicians, their corruption and pruriginious mannerisms, but has she done her bit? Being an educated person (she might have such an assumption about her), did she give it a thought to keep the bottle to herself and through it away in the dustbin when she found one?
A teacher who tells the parents constantly not to compare their child with other children, as every child has his/her own special capability, near the coffee machine blabbers about how China impeccably held the Olympics or how London is already prepared for the 2012 Olympics, depicting Indian Common Wealth Games as a low-achieving child, sitting in the corner, watching all the other children taking their degrees grimacing at him.
Last week, in Times of India, I read Chetan Bhagat's article asking the Indian Citizen's to boycott the games. As adept a writer he might be (though I seriously doubt that), the article written was a disgrace for any Indian. His moral skills and truthfulness were quite exposed during the whole 3 Idiots episode, depiciting him a soul in severe search for attention but soon discovered the gaffe in his plan. A boycott of the games will not only leave India disgraced and drained of all self respect, but the primary purpose behind it i.e. to teach a lesson to our corrupt leaders will not be met. They have already raked in the moolah and stuffed their Swiss accounts. Believe me, it is the last of their priorities to hold the games successfully and even lower in their list lies the act of putting India's best foot forward. It is now upto us to bring the best of out of India by doing our bit. By not littering around, being humble to the foreign tourists who might ask us for a direction or two and the foremost is to, not criticize our preparations to the extent of defacing it.
You do your bit and let others do their's.
Hoping to have the best Games ever.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Hello
Hello Everyone. This is my first post in this blog. I know most of you must be wondering the name "Cup of Tea!!" , well the posts in this blog will be articles that you can enjoy and later ponder over while sipping your evening tea.
So sit back and enjoy the posts on this blog.
"critics are your best friends"
So sit back and enjoy the posts on this blog.
"critics are your best friends"
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