The Bored Engineer

“Why can’t you understand, life is not that simple. You can’t just wish for your problems to go away like that without doing anything about it”, cried Arjun. “I don’t mind talking about problems, but it you have to understand that you are not always correct. Why don’t you try to visualize life from someone else’s perspective as well”, replied Tanya. “There is no point talking sense to you. You will always be trapped in the limitations of your own thinking. So much for being a wannabe feminist, all you know is how to twist everyone else into forcing them to accept what you want them to.” “How can you be so insensitive, Arjun. One day you propose to me telling me that you love my outlook of life and the very next day you question the very basis of my belief system. What do you want me to do, please tell me because now I’m not sure if I can even understand what is going on inside your head.” “I want you to think and talk to me when you are back in the right frame of mind

Silence had befallen the auditorium after the thunderous applause died down that had accompanied Dr. Zutshi, the world famous doctor of prosthetic sciences. Students had been waiting for his lecture since the beginning of semester and soon it was the most talked about event in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. The doctor looked at the gathering with blank expression on his face. He wondered as to what should be his words to the students at his  Alma  mater. He had his speech ready in front of him but it did  didn't  seem right to him to brag about his achievements in a subtle way and then bore the students with his case studies. Taking a deep breath he uttered, “This  doesn't  feel right. Another lecture by another old man with very little to offer to the future. I don’t want to talk about cases and complications, you will have a lot of them in your career. If there is something that I can say to help you fellows in your future endeavours, then it does not

Marriages are forged in heaven but the bonds of matrimony are broken here on the earth, and no one knew that better than Sanjay. With a career spanning over twenty years as a divorce attorney he knew more about breaking up families than saving them and it suited him well. But right now he wished quite the opposite. Because for now he was trying to save the marriage of his best friend Aakash who had suddenly developed a strange affinity for some college girl who met him at some seminar-or-convention. He didn’t know much about her except the fact that Aakash had been acting weird since he met her and his once a family-man best friend was today missing along with a girl half his age, leaving him to manage the wrath of his wife. As she disconnected the call from her mother, Maya’s temper seemed to flare up quickly. It had been 12 hours since she had returned from her parents’ home in Delhi and Aakash was nowhere to be found. Couple that with a photo of Aakash with that girl fro

The Ikea Play Report 2014 suggests that Indian parents are concerned that their children are obsessed with social networking and the traditional family system is falling apart with 59% agreeing that “sometimes in my family everyone is using their mobile devices and not talking to each other”. With growth of internet services and more inexpensive devices hitting markets every day the trend is surely going upwards and does possess some serious challenges as to how family structures are going to evolve against this new threat of virtualization that eliminates the need for a face-to-face conversation with family. Although this may seem a bit depressing but it’s not all bad out there. With social networks getting stronger we see people collaborating and teaming up to solve various problems from suggesting ideas at national level (using mygov.in etc.) to coming together to protest a new regulation or an archaic law, online Indian is connected like never before. A recent example that ca

How much does a man need? Should we be really satisfied with what we have and when does growing need give birth to greed. I don’t know answers to that and I don’t expect you to have them either. After all how can we? All our lives we have spent taking care of and listening to just one person, that one person we call ‘I’. Yeah, we may have occasionally given a thought or two to other peoples’ lives, the lives that are connected to ours. The lives of our brothers and sisters, of our parents and of our friends and relatives. But that’s it. I for one always thought that I am a caring person who thinks about others, of the direction our nation is heading to, of eliminating poverty etc. continuous reading books and watching documentaries and interviews, surfing internet and discussing with friends and family. I thought this is what everyone was supposed to do and I was doing my part. Yesterday, it was Raksha Bandhan, the festival of love, of the strong sibling bond that has ev

In the run-up to the recently concluded Delhi Assembly Elections many personal allegations made their way onto national media. Some of them utterly nonsensical while others made a little sense although their relevance in an election campaign was questionable. Once such issue that cropped up was that Arvind Kejriwal who always made a hue and cry about being an Aam Aadmi and denounced other politicians for being Elitist and pro-capitalists totally ignoring the majority population and favouring the few Khaas Aadmi . To make his point he even travelled in Delhi Metro on the way to his inauguration ceremony, refused security cover and to a certain extent endorsed a somewhat messed-up ‘fashion- statement’ resembling more of a rickshawala (although I don’t mean to imply that dressing like that is deplorable, but well at certain times it didn’t meet the dress code of the event he was attending). But all things aside, he made his version of Aam Aadmi into a very successful brand, su

Recently at a quizzing event I came across a strange fact. The Santa-Banta jokes were named after the killers of late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in order to humiliate the Sikh community and punish them. Although I tried to cross check the fact on the internet, I was unable to verify the authenticity of the above stated fact, but what made me think was that this is not the case of two imaginary individuals (read fools) but an entire community is ridiculed. As I said earlier I can’t verify the origin of these Sardar jokes but the fact that we are openly stereotyping an entire community and ridiculing it is no less disturbing than trampling their basic human rights (The right to live their life with dignity). Can this be considered any less than an Indian version of Apartheid? After all no matter what part of India you are in you will hear a Sardarji joke. People of almost every region and ethnicity make Sardar jokes and forward these jokes on their social networks. Bollywood itse

World’s largest democracy, India. A nation of 1.25 billion people uniting themselves under the Tricolour abiding by their fundamental duties as well as enjoying the fruits of being a free nation. Our constitution guarantees us freedom of expression, religion and in return expects us to respect the national flag, constitution and educate ourselves so that we may serve the nation better. Now as lucrative as it may seem, the reality is quite otherwise. We as a nation despise freedom. We look down upon youngsters (mostly females) and their dressing sense, we hate it when a woman asking for civil rights has been on a fast for more than 10 years, and we don’t like a person from some other state makes a living in our state. We hate it all. Our politics is not about liking a politician or their policies, rather we hate other politicians. We take pride on calling ourselves a pluralistic society but look around you and see how much we hate the economic or social diversity. We hate

Nearly sixty years ago Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose supposedly died in an air crash. Nation mourned on the death of a titan and the government followed up with an investigation. Three commissions of enquiries have been set up but to this day the contents of the investigation report have not been conclusive. Also various documents related to Netaji’s death have been classified and kept away from public purview under the guise of variable nomenclature (like ‘Top Secret’, ‘Secret’, ‘Classified’ and ‘Unclassified’). But we as a nation deserves to know what happened to one of our most dynamic leader and vastly loved freedom crusader who is a source of inspiration and patriotism even so long after his death. BJP during its election campaign had promised to release classified files about Netaji's death but now it seems like the matter has been conveniently forgotten. Sixty years on and the truth is still hidden behind closed doors in the name of secrecy and protectin

The stage is set. Everyone is buzzing around. You can see the tense faces of the organisers. It has taken weeks of meticulous planning and today is the day. An event of this magnitude has not been held before in this part of the city and everything has to be perfect. Banners and posters have been put up weeks ago and the response has been unprecedented. Recognizing the magnanimity of the event even district administration offered to help with the security and general arrangements. Loudspeakers are bursting with music. People are lining up to witness what promises to be the last step of the tour that has travelled across the whole of the nation. Language might have been a problem at some places but with a personality as big as this people tend to show up breaking the barriers of language. The sponsors have also been gracious enough to support the event. A certain entity has offered to serve free beverages while several others have offered to contribute collective to the eatabl