It’s been quite some time since Rakyesh Omprakash Mehra released the box office blockbuster: Rang De Basanti and it feels like years already. We were stirred by the genius of A R Rahman and patriotism was aroused in us through power packed performances by Amir Khan and his peers. Personally, I felt like letting out a shout after that movie. No, it wasn’t because I did not appreciate the movie … Infact, I LOVED it. The shout was of restlessness … that probably I do not do enough / care enough about the greater good for my nation , The shout was of anger … of the corruption that has spread like stage III cancer in the roots of our nation. I am sure you might be intrigued as to what suddenly aroused patriotism in me today …..

It was the images being flashed across television news channels and no, they weren’t the Dhoni’s men. The images are of a 73 year old ageing Gandhian, Anna Hazare. A man with an ageing body, but an indomitable will to make things happen for the nation. Currently, he fasts unto death for making the LokPal bill (anti-corruption bill) happen. I happened to follow the news channels utterly by accident and felt a need to spread the word across to my own network. We are the youth of the country and the baton of ‘choice’ lies in our hands. A choice to decide whether we care enough about the dirty politics in our country, A choice to decide what politicians should rule us by exercising our right to vote, A choice to make informed decisions about everything around us…Thankfully for the age in which we are born, it is no big deal to spread the word across the masses. I urge you to tune in to YouTube and watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxksAURdwTI. It’s not about motivational speeches, neither is it about the 2011 cricket world champions. It is simply about a 73-year old lone captain, trying to do something for the larger good. Are you on his team? Watch the video. It takes just 10 minutes of your time, and whether you like it or not, if you are an Indian, spread it across your social network. Remember: A million drops of water made an entire ocean. So, just by posting this video across, you would help everyone in your network to simply know what this campaign is all about. Jai Hind!

I ain't sure , whether the content that follows should go in here under the India Calling heading..... Well, but it is in sync with the most talked about topics of the day .... in India ..... Ha ! And why shouldn't it be ? ?? With the crude oil prices soaring at the dizzy $135 levels it is but natural that we start to introspect.



Disclaimer : The thoughts below are from the innumberable e-mail forwards that we recieve each day. Its worth a read. Once you are done, try relating those facts with any scenario of our daily lives .... It works !


This is a story about a man who eats "eggs" (chicken or duck ...does not matter ;) ) for breakfast every single day. Go ... discover yourself ....

A man eats two eggs each morning for breakfast. When he goes to the grocery store he pays 60 cents a dozen. Since a dozen eggs won't last a week he normally buys two dozens at a time. One day while buying eggs he notices that the price has risen to 72 cents. The next time he buys groceries, eggs are 76 cents a dozen.

When asked to explain the price of eggs the store owner says, "The price has gone up and I have to raise my price accordingly". This store buys 100 dozen eggs a day. He checked around for a better price and all the distributors have raised their prices. The distributors have begun to buy from the huge egg farms. The small egg farms have been driven out of business.The huge egg farms sell 100,000 dozen eggs a day to distributors. With no competition, they can set the price as they see fit. The distributors then have to raise their prices to t he grocery stores. And on and on and on.

As the man kept buying eggs the price kept going up. He saw the big egg trucks delivering 100 dozen eggs each day. Nothing changed there.He checked out the huge egg farms and found they were selling 100,000 dozen eggs to the distributors daily. Nothing had changed but the price of eggs. Then week before Thanksgiving the price of eggs shot up to $1.00 a dozen. Again he asked the grocery owner why and was told, "Cakes and baking for the holiday". The huge egg farmers know there will be a lot of baking going on and more eggs will be used. Hence, the price of eggs goes up. Expect the same thing at Christmas and other times when family cooking, baking, etc. happen.

This pattern continues until the price of eggs is 2.00 a dozen. The man says, " There must be something we can do about the price of eggs". He starts talking to all the people in his town and they dec ide to stop buying eggs. This didn't work because everyone needed eggs. Finally, the man suggested only buying what you need. He ate 2 eggs a day. On the way home from work he would stop at the grocery and buy two eggs. Everyone in town started buying 2 or 3 eggs a day. The grocery store owner began complaining that he had too many eggs in his cooler. He told the distributor that he didn't need any eggs. Maybe wouldn't need any all week. The distributor had eggs piling up at his warehouse. He told the huge egg farms that he didn't have any room for eggs would not need any for at least two weeks.

At the egg farm, the chickens just kept on laying eggs. To relieve the pressure, the huge egg farm told the distributor that they could buy the eggs at a lower price. The distributor said, " I don't have the room for the %$&^*&% eggs even if they were free". T he distributor told the grocery store owner that he would lower the price of the eggs if the store would start buying again. The grocery store owner said, "I don't have room for more eggs. The customers are only buying 2 or 3 eggs at a time. Now if you were to drop the price of eggs back down to the original price, the customers would start buying by the dozen again". The distributors sent that proposal to the huge egg farmers but the egg farmers liked the price they were getting for their eggs but, those chickens just kept on laying. Finally, the egg farmers lowered the price of their eggs. But only a few cents.

The customers still bought 2 or 3 eggs at a time. They said, "when the price of eggs gets down to where it was before, we will start buying by the dozen." Slowly the price of eggs started dropping. The distributors had to
slash their prices to make room for the eggs coming from the egg farmers. The egg farmers cut their prices because the distributors wouldn't buy at a higher price than they were selling eggs for. Anyway, they had full warehouses and wouldn't need eggs for quite a while.

And those chickens kept on laying.

Eventually, the egg farmers cut their prices because they were throwing away eggs they couldn't sell. The distributors started buying again because the eggs were priced to where the stores could afford to sell them at the lower price. And the customers starting buying by the dozen again.

Now, transpose this analogy to the gasoline industry.

What if everyone only bought $10.00 worth of gas each time they pulled to the pump? The dealer's tanks would stay semi full all the time. The dealers wouldn't have room for the gas coming from the huge tank farms.
The tank farms wouldn't have room for the gas coming from the refining plants. And the refining plants wouldn't have room for the oil being off loaded from the huge tankers coming from the oil fiends.Just $10.00 each time you buy gas. Don't fill it up. You may have to stop for gas twice a week but, the price should come down.

Think about it.

As an added note...When I buy $10.00 worth of gas that leaves my tank a little under quarter full. The way prices are jumping around, you can buy gas for $2.65 a g allon and then the next morning it can be $2.15. If you have your tank full of $2.65 gas you don't have room for the $2.15 gas. You might not understand the economics of only buying two eggs at a time but, you can't buy cheaper gas if your tank is full of the high priced stuff. Also, don't buy anything else at the gas station; don't give them any more of your hard earned money than what you spend on gas, until the prices come down..."

Just think of this concept for a while.

.

Its 11:54 pm here in Pune , India ... Its quite incredible as to what topic can lead to being a BLOG as a whole . India Calling , this thread tries to delve deeper into the various aspects of our country . Be it the greatest controversies , be it the rich cultural heritage , be it the rich people that India produced .....or simply this poor old man ...Period !

This picture here was taken by Steve McCurry , in Porbandar ,Gujrat circa.,1983 ..Its been quite a while . As I was flipping through steve's e-portfolio , I stumbled upon this image . It immediately lit me up ... and I felt a need that this should communicate with a greater mass .

We say , we glorify our daily life problems .... A thing misplaced , A thing not by our standards and its just about enough to cause the neural networks to work extra fast and produce a biiiig episode . This guy here , is probably in the biggest tragedy of his life , his house washed out ...his attire clealry shows his paltry condition ...Still , he DARES to wear a SMILE on his wrinkled face ...:) . Probably this is a real small incident , however it is of these kind that motivate you , that make your problems seem totally negligible ....and just makes you say - Salaam India !

-Thoughts from the Soul (9th April , 2006 )

All this long , Probably we looked into just one story about Gandhi's assassination .However we never looked at Nathuram Godse's point of view . What really happened and what did not ...that would still remain a controversy , but yes , Its definitely required that we read both the sides of the coin before judging the incident . What follows is an interview that Gopal Godse (Nathuram's brother) reluctantly agreed to do for TIME ,New Delhi .


"His Principle of Peace Was Bogus"

-Gopal Godse, co-conspirator in Gandhi's assassination
and brother of the assassin Nathuram Godse
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


TIME: What happened in January 1948?
Godse: On Jan. 20, Madanlal Pahwa exploded a bomb at Gandhi's prayer meeting in Delhi. It was 50 m away from Gandhi. [The other conspirators] all ran away from the place. Madanlal was caught there. Then there was a tension in our minds that we had to finish the task before the police caught us. Then Nathuram [Gopal's brother] took it on himself to do the thing. We only wanted destiny to help us -- meaning we should not be caught on the spot before he acted.

TIME: Why did you want to kill Gandhi?
Godse: Gandhi was a hypocrite. Even after the massacre of the Hindus by the Muslims, he was happy. The more the massacres of the Hindus, the taller his flag of secularism.

TIME: Did you ever see Gandhi?
Godse: Yes.

TIME: Did you attend his meetings?
Godse: Yes.

TIME: Can you explain how he created his mass following?
Godse: The credit goes to him for maneuvering the media. He captured the press. That was essential. How Gandhi walked, when he smiled, how he waved -- all these minor details that the people did not require were imposed upon them to create an atmosphere around Gandhi. And the more ignorant the masses, the more popular was Gandhi. So they always tried to keep the masses ignorant.

TIME: But surely it takes more than good publicity to create a Gandhi?
Godse: There is another thing. Generally in the Indian masses, people are attracted toward saintism. Gandhi was shrewd to use his saintdom for politics. After his death the government used him. The government knew that he was an enemy of Hindus, but they wanted to show that he was a staunch Hindu. So the first act they did was to put "Hey Ram" into Gandhi's dead mouth.

TIME: You mean that he did not say "Hey Ram" as he died?
Godse: No, he did not say it. You see, it was an automatic pistol. It had a magazine for nine bullets but there were actually seven at that time. And once you pull the trigger, within a second, all the seven bullets had passed. When these bullets pass through crucial points like the heart, consciousness is finished. You have no strength.

When Nathuram saw Gandhi was coming, he took out the pistol and folded his hands with the pistol inside it. There was one girl very close to Gandhi. He feared that he would hurt the girl. So he went forward and with his left hand pushed her aside and shot. It happened within one second. You see, there was a film and some Kingsley fellow had acted as Gandhi. Someone asked me whether Gandhi said, "Hey Ram." I said Kingsley did say it. But Gandhi did not. Because that was not a drama.

TIME: Many people think Gandhi deserved to be nominated TIME's Person of the Century. [He was one of two runners-up, after Albert Einstein.]
Godse: I name him the most cruel person for Hindus in India. The most cruel person! That is how I term him.

TIME: Is that why Gandhi had to die?
Godse: Yes. For months he was advising Hindus that they must never be angry with the Muslims. What sort of ahimsa (non-violence) is this? His principle of peace was bogus. In any free country, a person like him would be shot dead officially because he was encouraging the Muslims to kill Hindus.

TIME: But his philosophy was of turning the other cheek. He felt one person had to stop the cycle of violence...
Godse: The world does not work that way.

TIME: Is there anything that you admire about Gandhi?
Godse: Firstly, the mass awakening that Gandhi did. In our school days Gandhi was our idol. Secondly, he removed the fear of prison. He said it is different to go into prison for a theft and different to go in for satyagraha (civil disobedience). As youngsters, we had our enthusiasm, but we needed some channel. We took Gandhi to be our channel. We don't repent for that.

TIME: Did you not admire his principles of non-violence?
Godse: Non-violence is not a principle at all. He did not follow it. In politics you cannot follow non-violence. You cannot follow honesty. Every moment, you have to give a lie. Every moment you have to take a bullet in hand and kill someone. Why was he proved to be a hypocrite? Because he was in politics with his so-called principles. Is his non-violence followed anywhere? Not in the least. Nowhere.

TIME: What was the most difficult thing about killing Gandhi?
Godse: The greatest hurdle before us was not that of giving up our lives or going to the gallows. It was that we would be condemned both by the government and by the public. Because the public had been kept in the dark about what harm Gandhi had done to the nation. How he had fooled them!

TIME: Did the people condemn you?
Godse: Yes. People in general did. Because they had been kept ignorant.