What's up, Bangalore!

It's been long since I wrote something light on this blog. In fact it's been long since I actually wrote anything on this blog except a Raj Thackeray piece, that is, the one below. So, here we go, on my training in Bangalore.

The fact is that I do not want to write anything about the training or the office. They are too boring to be talked about. Right now I'm in a class of 37 and I hardly remember names of half of them, that is, when there are 5 from my previous batch and a few others from my college also.

So, if the training is boring, what is good at Bangalore. Traffic is certainly not. I start early, at 7-7.15 in the morning so that I reach my center in time. And then, I reach home when the clock is almost in the same position, making it a 12 hour workday for me.

Well, the only good thing at Bangalore is FM. (counting only things, not people, who've been really good, they'll be taken up later sometime) Especially 94.3, the Radio One has been simply great. This channel gives 99.9% Hindi songs (maybe 100, not sure) with Hindi-English-Kannada mixed chattering all the time. They get the credit for my listening to Haule Haule and Guzarish before they reached me through net.

Actually I have a parallel FM too, and that does even have these chatterers in between. It's pure and simple music, songs one after the other. Back to back in the RJs' language. And this is courtesy my cellphone which right now has some 336 songs, that is in a 470 MB memory card. (generally known as a 512 MB card) The only disadvantage with the 'parallel' FM is that it doesn't have ONE song. Here ONE means the latest one.

For example, it didn't have Haule Haule when FM played it for the first time. Then after two days I had all the songs of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, and then after one day I didn't have Guzarish that was being played on FM. So it's just that my FM is one song behind, which is covered up by Radio One.

Other than that, there is 'The Afghan' by Fredrick Forsyth that I'm trying to read in buses and office breaks. But the not-that-interesting book has to fight a lot for my time, with FM and sleep always on the cards. The most surprising thing is that I haven't yet seen Fashion, or any other movie for that matter since I've come here.

Hope things are better when I'm out of training. Till then, it's Java, J2EE, Oracle, RDBMS, tests, projects, JBoss, Eclipse, Head First, Complete Reference....

God Bless Me.

Is it Only Raj?

It's been really long since I want to write something about Raj Thackeray. I was hating him from the core of my heart. But for the past few days I'm not hating Raj that much. Actually it's not that I'm not hating Raj that much, but the thing is that I'm feeling more hatred for others now.

First of all, I should clarify that in what I write ahead, I do not support Raj Thackeray in any of the activities he has done or any of his statements or policies.

Actually this is something that was running in my mind for quite long. It was made more clear when I read an article by Mrunal Pande in 'Hindustan' and the spark for writing this came from the huge hoardings of LK Advani that I've been looking at for past one week while travelling in Bangalore buses.

Raj Thackeray is a selfish person. No doubt about that. He has done all things he could to get himself in the news and has put his hand on a pulse of many Marathis. At the same time, he has fallen to levels not generally found in today's India, that is, with a few exceptions from UP or maybe Bihar, mainly in the less educated areas of these two states.

But the way Raj has done it, he has found some support from even educated people, something that is not easily found in the 'less educated' UP or Bihar.

All this is certainly very unfortunate. More unfortunate is that people will still cast their votes in favor of Raj and he will get what he has done all this for.

But the most unfortunate thing according to me, is the silence of the so-called leaders of our country. Be it Sonia Gandhi, the lady above the PM and President of our country, or LK Advani, who probably finds himself the most suitable person for the next Prime Minister, or even Manmohan Singh, our Prime Minister himself, all are afraid of commenting against The Great Raj Thackeray. Of course, their party spokespersons have issued the press statements from the respective parties condemning the 'unfortunate incidents'. But our national leaders who are not hesitant to disturb entire rescue operations in floods, fires, earthquakes and bomb blasts just to show their faces, are hiding behind the curtains when they need to speak up. Actually I do not know what they fear, but I guess it must be fear of losing votes by some calculations because that is the only thing they are afraid of.

That's the reason I'm hating these leaders more than Raj Thackeray nowadays. What Raj has done is surely beyond all limits, but there is one thing I felt good about him when I compared him to these leaders -- that he has a stand of his own, however bad, wrong, dividing, disturbing or destroying it is. Our leaders are of no use if they cannot take a stand of their own in such conditions. When I compare the two, i feel there is no better to go to, while one is all set to divide the country, others are quietly watching the drama unfolding itself, waiting for the next move of the artist.

Overall, I feel it's not just Raj Thackeray who is trying to divide our country. All those who are sitting and enjoying this drama instead of trying to end it, are playing their roles in the drama too. And when this drama ends, I do not know where will me and my country be.