The Bored Engineer

Disappointment and disillusionment are the virtues of the pessimists who love to bask in them to reaffirm their sadistic outlook of life. So when I as a self-proclaimed Optimistic–General of World Optimism Council tell you that the book “ Neither A Hawk Nor A Dove ” by Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri was a major disappointment for me, you know I’m not just saying it for the sake of saying it, I have been tormented by something painful that must have hurt my soul. Enough of the theatrics, I picked up the book because of two primary reasons:       It promised to give an insider’s view of the backchannel settlement of the Kashmir agreed upon by India and Pakistan around 2006-07.    The drama that unfurled in India when Mr. Kasuri was here to promote his book and his subsequent appeal that his book was not a Pakistani propaganda, rather an attempt to bridge the gap in the Indian and Pakistani narratives about our shared history. The books starts with Mr. Kasuri delving into his

As I wander through the ruins that I once called home I can’t help but feel the apparent despair and hopelessness. Everything that I once called home is lost. The home has lost its warmth. For me the mention of home always brought to my mind the images of me entering the home. It’s an old house, really old something like 150 years old. Many heritage enthusiastic organisations have declared it as a heritage site and offered to renovate the parts of it. And of course my parents declined the offer, their argument: “It’s our home and if we feel need to renovate something we will renovate it on our own.” I always liked this pride of theirs because it made me think of them as the strong people who will never bend whatever be the circumstances. I mean these are the people who survived the ethnic cleansing and target killings of the 1990s. As I keep walking I look around the elegant but deserted buildings that are all around my home. These were all inhabited by people before they left to

While we are here sitting in relatively comfortable dwellings gossiping about college, cricket or even Bollywood, complaining about stuff we don’t have and what we deserve as a nation in the 21 st century (internet connectivity is surely gonna top that list!), while we go on with our lives there is a woman raped in some war torn African nation, a child orphaned in some Arab nation under siege by a terrorist group, a country’s heritage is being destroyed, the natural wealth of some place in India is being plundered, the basic democratic rights of people in China are being trampled. We have fixated our eyes so strongly on the brightness that our future promises to hold that we miss out on the darkness spread wide in present times. We go on with our lives and there isn’t much that we can do as individuals to change the course of some place thousands of miles from where we are, but does that absolve all our responsibilities as a global citizen. Isn’t every murder that is happening

‘Kashmir’ - an issue so volatile it can polarize the sanest of the minds into mind numbing extremism. Whenever Kashmir is on the boil or in the headline for any reason even the most liberal sounding people on my Facebook friend-list suddenly tear apart all their identities and fall into two categories: Kashmiris (mostly living outside the state and in other parts of India) who suddenly feel the need to highlight the ‘human right abuses’ which may or may not have been happening and people from rest of India who feel the need to thump their chest and abuse Kashmiris. While the silent majority looks on, occasionally expressing its dismay over the human right abuses and occasionally supporting the anti-terror operations of our armed forces (anti –terror not anti-protestors). I have been a part of the silent majority as well, looking around at people from both sides calling each other names and ‘highlighting’ facts which in their view are suppressed by ‘vested interests’. I do not

In the Times of India editorial DIGITAL INDIA IS DYING dated(July 4, 2016) the author has made a pitch for some sort of protectionist policies being implementing to ‘save’ the digital start-ups in India which are in a nascent stage from their international or more importantly American competitors with deep pockets. The author makes a compelling case for Flipkart, Snapdeal and OLA which are facing stiff competition from Amazon and Uber. The author airs his fears of India becoming the digital colony of America just like Europe has been while praising china for it closed market which have given it a home grown versions of google and Facebook. While I don’t dispute the writers claims about Indian digital companies facing an uphill task against their American rivals but I doubt if we should ever take sides. We had a closed economy for a good 40 years simply because we felt so burnt and exploited of foreign colonial exploitation that had just ended that we missed the global growth

What is the one thing that defines most of us Indians and still is inherently devoid of any logic? You may well be tempted to mention our quest for getting our children enrolled in an Engineering/Medical college (irrespective of their abilities and aptitude, of course. Where is the fun otherwise?), but no. The one thing that connects us all, that one trait fostering our unity in diversity is our inability to not get offended or simple ignore things that really don’t matter to us (and about the things that truly matter; well who has the time for that! More on that later) and consequentially ban things arbitrarily. Take for example the recent controversy surrounding a video by comedian Tanmay Bhat, impersonating Bharat Ratan Sachin Tendulkar and Bharat Ratan Lata Mangeshkar. Now the video may seem a bit derogatory and in bad humour to many (including me) but why can’t we simply ignore a comedian who is just doing his job. He may not be up to our expected standards (although

Respected seniors, It was your farewell today, marking the culmination of your journey as a student of this institution and I must say that you all have made us proud and I wish you all the very best in all your future endeavours. Whatever be the case, you will have us at your back supporting you no matter what. Although I could go on and on about future I wish to talk to you about the present or the immediate future that stares us in the face. Soon you will be leaving the campus taking different paths that the life may have in store for you and we will be left there to take your place and this scares the hell out of me. How will we ever match up to you, how will we find that exactly right blend of friendship and mentorship that our juniors will expect of us. I remember you sharing our joys and worries like the very best of our friends and yet when we erred you were there to guide us. You laughed at the silliest of our jokes (and vice versa of course) and disciplined us wit

India is often referred to as the nation of contrasting nature, assimilating various hues and shades that seem to defy the very presence of the other. Our vibrant democracy has also in certain cases led to situations that may surprise the novice observer. For example while four states in India share two capitals each (Haryana - Punjab = Chandigarh & Telangana - Andhra Pradesh = Hyderabad) we also have a state that has two capitals, Jammu and Kashmir having Jammu and Srinagar as its winter and summer capitals respectively. While Chandigarh & Hyderabad are examples where the states involved have shown inability to create/maintain capitals of their own (although Andhra Pradesh is working on its separate capital), Jammu and Kashmir boasts of two functional capitals for a single state. While many feel that maintaining two capitals leads to wastage of precious public funds and time, an equally compelling argument in its favor is that it maintains regional stability. The