Monday, August 25, 2008

Top ten to secure

It was the occasion of my cousin’s 1st marriage anniversary. A party was hosted by the couple in their premises. The living room was so carefully decorated to pull a ‘Wow!’ from all of us. The TV unit exhibits a huge collection of expensive show pieces from The Life Style all well placed and carefully set. Sparkling Italian dining glassware sits safe into a showcase of the dinning hall. A well arranged kitchen smiles proudly at the other ladies. A bed room so gorgeous one could have never seen in a house that belongs to an upper middle class family, symbolizes the newly married couple. As we sat on her cot and had our teeth munch with various topics, her husband, who came into the bed room in search of their marriage photo album, opened their posh wooden wardrobe which had no lock. When everyone appreciated my cousin’s consciousness on cleanliness, leaving the last rack of the store unnoticed, I was shocked to see those photocopies of all their personal documents, although secured in files, kept in an unlocked area to which anyone can have an access. When I tried to get her know the consequences of her carelessness, as with many young people, she didn’t consider that as a major fault. Most of us tend to take things easy until something warns us literally in reality. Why do old people at home ask us to keep certain documents secure? Why talk of the originals when even the photocopies have to be secure?


Top nine picks to secure.


1. Your date of birth, full name and your credit card number


Anyone who gets to know this combination can easily break your account that is in pack with the credit card belonging to the same bank.


2. Your date of birth, full name, passport number and dates of expiry and issue


Anyone who gets to know this combination can duplicate your passport as their photo identity and apply for a credit card or a personal loan (private banks are too greedy to get a customer and they lack much procedures).

Also international terrorism uses this as an easy technique to mislead the authorities in concern.


3. Your pan card number and your full name


People could file taxes in your account and could also earn interest out of it.


4. The area of your marriage registration


Anyone who gets to know this can acquire a copy of your marriage certificate (it’s possible in Indian environment) and find your full address. He may engage in family partnership businesses in your name.


5. Passport size photographs with anything other than white background.



Most dangerous that it can be easily manipulated onto duplicate documents.


6. Photocopies of your property documents


They can be easily duplicated and sold on your behalf. Even revealing of the survey number is not advisable.


7. The gazette copy number you have changed your name with


Your name could easily be used by someone who indulges in malpractices.


8. Your professional visiting card


Do not trust anyone and offer your professional visiting for he may use it for unnecessary obligations or dupe his influence with you to offer unwarranted favor to an innocent.


9. Your email address


Only someone knows your email id he can pull your interest to things that you don’t need.


In all the above cases you would be the final convict even after 20 years in which case you might not even know the crime you are blamed for.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

DES - The Dollar Effect Syndrome


As I walked across the arrival stretch of the Melbourne airport, I was surprised by that name board held high by a man whose head was almost unseen amidst of his heavy body. It signed a name so pleasant and I approached him recognizing myself to be received. So were the other aspirants of the same University. Holding my breath with the unbearable cold wind blowing my nostrils, I must have thought, I was left safe in a fairly decent inn that can provide me with all the basic necessities at a nominal cost. Having in mind those quotations that my consultant had given about the living cost of this alien land, I bid a graceful bye to the guy and checked in. The check-in form had all those promising facilities that the inn provided. The receptionist could see a charming smile on my face which soon had absconded with the notice of the final figure that appeared most unkind to the eyes of an Indian who had only dreamt that to be her first day salary at work someday in future – 77 $ per day with only a breakfast and drinking water from the tap. I knew that the travelers cheque of 3000$ that I had proudly carried trans-continent, is soon in danger.

Every dinner at the cheapest possible outlet penalized me with at least 1000 in Indian currency. By then I had stopped drinking coffee to save 100 Rs a day on it. A spiral wheel of nostalgia would then start running between my eyebrows with that old Indian melancholy music at the background - It was a sleepy Sunday morning; So difficult was it to brush my teeth and ask for a coffee; It did come with a great aroma on my table with her morning wishes but all that I returned were complaints- “Mama! How many times should I tell you not to give me one like what you have? I am not a diabetic like you”. Now give me a coffee with no sugar or glass full of sugar I can sip it. It’s heavenly if it comes for 50 cents. What a drastic change in life! A course of 7 days in a different land taught me that I would starve and die one day if I even unconsciously finger a dollar to rupees and I better train my eyes to look at dollars as normal as rupees. Factually, one from a country of lower economics on living abroad in a higher economical background can never overcome his abacus multiplications on relating currencies of these two different countries. DES – The Dollar Effect Syndrome. This would make an Indian feel like a fish out of pond in countries like Australia, USA and the UK, the luxury of which is inviting but consequentially, suppressing. When their sons and daughters break theirs heads to compromise with this pathetic situation there, one stays envying them on hearing talks of their great life styles spoken proudly by their parents in India. What a funny world!

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Aren't we guilty?

Every Sunday afternoon after a great variety meal, we sit to watch our favorite channels in the television, some getting us entertained and some getting us informed of what’s happening around. As we keep scrolling up and down the end product of laziness or of the so called advancement of science, the remote control, we get stuck ourselves to our new cozy sofa, sometimes with even dozing heads pretending to watch but listen. On one such afternoon in one of the TV channels, was a headline issue followed by its details as to be happening in Japan.

- A new born being taken care by a home for orphans, unclaimed by both his official parents and his surrogate mother. The surrogate mother, having no claims by law is obviously not considerate. But it’s painful to notice that the couple, who had been so much desperate to have a child, who had gone to an extent of any how getting one by fixing a surrogate mother, is now so indifferent in claiming him as their child or as the child of anyone of them after a divorce. What does the new born has to do with their divorce?

When this strikes hard in our heart, do we only think of one such child in this world? Our thoughts wander around thousand such children left unclaimed, left with unidentified belonging in several such orphanages. Are we not guilty of not doing anything about it? It’s reasonable if the youth community says it’s not practical to take up one such responsibility on their heads, when they themselves are thriving hard to find their identity in the society (There are of course strict laws that prohibit young couple from adopting children unless they have a valid reason to do so. Also one should have sound financial back up to get one home). But what can be opinionated on rich, old people who seem to be calling themselves as great souls to have accomplished all their responsibilities in an exemplary manner towards their family. Having done all this that’s needful for their grandchildren, aren’t they guilty of sitting with the newspaper and on phone with friends and family to pass the last few years of their lives? Will the old think? Every drop makes an ocean. Even a minute thought about this will make a huge impact.

Cradle uncared

Beetle bites on a fresh blossom
Of crystal pink and a smile awesome
How can the nature be so gruesome?
To leave him in grab of a deadly spasm.

A bud that has come out of sadistic root
Or a seed that has formed in an eaten fruit
A boon that’s uncared by unkind divorce
Or a god who has escaped a family curse.

He sleeps with his cotton like fingers on hold
To the rods of the orphanage cradle, it’s cold
Whenever he wakes for his hunger and heed
In his eyes, is a thirst for his mom didn’t feed.

Ten billion kids on parental care
He is alone as a deserted heir
No directions fall on his lonely path
Only swampy love can set him in froth.

The rest of the blooms get some water
Has he been born to starve and wither?
If fate can be wild and act so perverse
Hands can be fair to help him traverse.

Why won’t he love his couch to be swung?
What should he care if lullabies are sung?
Why won’t the doors of the kind open?
And let him live life as no orphan.

Friday, August 8, 2008

Landing in australia

It was the first alien land that I landed on, to pursue a Master’s degree in Engineering offered by the University of Melbourne and therefore to live there for two years from then. One can never guess how different it is for an international student to enter this country with her luggage weighing 48 kgs. With an idea of living an Indian life there in Australia, assuming that the rules would be the same like other countries, I walked towards the exit gate, prior to which was the secondary immigration check. Two Australian security officials checking my suitcases completely in and out stirring all that they have been stuffed with, asking too many questions on the home packed ready made food mixes, hair oil, pickles bottle (trust me it’s not that easy convincing them like in the Tamil movie “ Nala Dhamayandhi”) . The packs looked unauthenticated for them unless they have been packed by a food company in our home country with all the ingredients, batch code, manufacturing and expiry dates on them. The minute I arrived out of the exit, I had a great relief of at least having saved a little of items from their throws. That was when I understood why there were too many list of questions in the form for immigration check during the transit.

I heard a co-traveler saying “They are too cautious in saving the quality of their living”. But what has it to do with what I have brought from my country for my use? It seems there were cases dealt in the history on adulterated products from other countries being sold in Australia and they consider this as a serious threat to the quality of their lives (Just compare it with the concerned Department in India). But this is only applicable for the first entry of a person and the subsequent ones are trusted 100 percent. So if a first entrant into the country wants to save a lot of money by taking everything from India at the rate of Rupees, he would any way land in losing the difference what he would have to pay in terms of Dollars for the same. From hair oil to boot polish, pickles to sweets nothing is permitted. But spotting out the place you wanted to be dropped is easy as you have information centers brilliantly located on almost all the places near all kinds of public transport facility outlets.

To be continued………………………………………a country a fortnight.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

On my First Date

It was a pleasant first date
So many years late.
By then it was for sure
To start a life together.
Although we longed to hear
Explain each other
No words got on tongue
I only had this poem sung.

You are my soul

Who fell in love
With the prince of Haden
It’s me queen Venus
The moon’s maiden

All around me
Seem to be in glaze
All that I see
Turned to be your face

How did I tame
My words to be sweeter
All with your name
How long would I hanker

Although my eyes
Have lost their lids
Dreams that spice
Have moistened my beds

Where have they gone
My sleep and my hunger
You are my dawn
Who made me a songster

Laughed to myself
Gone crazy I wondered
Anger would help
Your thoughts when hindered

When will your arms
Show me you are warm
One million swarms
Would rush through my swamp

What will I do
If you keep me away
Will buy you the heaven
Just glance me a sway

I am your heart
And you are my soul
Don’t keep us apart
Death charges the toll

Starter's Dilemma

When I was three year old, on my worried mom’s pester, I was too smart to dodge writing my home work as if I had difficulty only in starting it. The smartest (!) girl in our class ten, kept our Chemistry teacher guessing on how prompt she could ever submit her assignments, by asking too many doubts on the previous date of submission as if she only found it hard to start. I had a routine of writing one proxy leave letter per day at college as my friends posed as if they were only too lazy to start writing one. Every official meeting held towards beginning a new project seems to be filled with hundred discussions all apart from the intentions as if it needed only a one start. I gazed at a swimming pool with nothing really happening there for thirty minutes, spilling only smiles every half a minute at him on my first date, my mind being brushed hard to start talking those initials before our nuptials (I did write a poetry instead. Check it in this blog). My dad is yet to take his first morning walk to tuck his belly in, since I advised him a year ago, pushing the good start to every next day. What is it that’s common among all age groups?

I was so active in thinking that I should start writing on a blog something everyday to the interest of several blog followers. But was the tick in my mind to pen thick or thin as fast as my curiosity? Just before I could sit with my laptop I had one million topics to write on, all vanishing in Just-In-Just-Out mode as soon as the cursor stood on the writing pane of my blog. Would this be the case with several such starters, the best topic to start my first write up would be Starter’s Dilemma. At least once you must have gone through a state which shows that your instinct doesn't help your spontaneity of giving a good start for something that you wish to try out new or you are expected to begin. That’s the most common issue – Starting Trouble. An enthusiast finds it as an obstacle when he so much wants to show his capabilities while an escapist uses the same as a tool to defend his self esteem in the view of others.

Pondering beyond this border of just calling it a starting trouble, I find it as the egoistic fear in enthusiasts - people fearing about comparisons of their productions with those of other equals, I find it as a fear of incompetence in the naive – fearing how he would be taken as competent for the work by others. If none of these factors control the producers will they not give an excellent start for all that they long to exhibit? If one expresses his own fashion of doing things targeting self satisfaction in all that he does with no unbound expectations, having in mind that the world wouldn’t sink the next day, comparisons or comments are no limitations.

Just to push my writing on ‘The Starting Trouble’ I had to use the word, "write” seven times to help it start. Hope you guys would pass some comments on this without any Starting Trouble.