Life et al

Why flying Spicejet was a bad idea..

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 05:55:00 +0000

October 16, 2011

2015hrs One is standing in a queue at Spicejet Ticketing Counter, Terminal 1B of Mumbai Airport. Two men of Spicejet ground staff, who can not type using all the 10 fingers God provided them with, are trying to get the tickets printed. One experiences mild stress levels as the scheduled departure time is 2120 hours and the check-in counter closes 45 minutes prior to the departure time as per Govt. of India regulations.

2030hrs Mild chaos at check-in counters. Apparently the tags for check-in luggage were not being printed correctly. A separate queue for people carrying only cabin baggage was started and one was impressed with quick thinking

2045hrs Checked-in. Flight status still says that it's scheduled departure is at 2120 hours.

2100hrs Flight is now scheduled depart at 2140 hours. Minor glitch, one thought. One could still be in one's bed by midnight. One hoped.

2120hrs Due to bad weather flight has now been diverted to Ahmedabad and will depart only at 0045 hours on October 17, 2011. It is raining badly outside so only minor outrage.

2130hrs Spicejet ground staff informs one that the flight will be refueled at Ahmedabad and depart from there at around 10pm. And, although flight should land at Mumbai by 1130-1145 pm, another hour has been added as a buffer due to uncertain weather. All hopes of having a peaceful sleep now vanish.

2204hrs SMS received from Spicejet : TD-SJ-ITN : "Dear Passenger, your flight SG-408 dated 16-Oct-11 is delayed and will now depart at 23:45 hrs from Mumbai. We regret the inconvenience caused"

2215hrs One goes to see twitter to see if there are any fellow co-passengers. A quick twitter search on "spicejet" lead to this tweet by @ankitv

This Kol-Bom flight was supposed to go to Hyderabad. One is assured that one is not being duped and the flight indeed got diverted.

2230-2340hrs No announcement whatsoever.

2345hrs One is told by the Spicejet ground staff that the plane is about to land in 10 mins.

October 17, 2011

0015hrs Spicejet ground staff says that the plane has landed and one shall be boarding in no time.

0030hrs All ground staff went outside the Gate 6 and are not to be seen by anyone till half an hour. Meanwhile, Spicejet buses are parked outside Gate 6. Still, one has a simmering hope that one might leave the airport soon.

0100hrs Spicejet ground staff returns to their counter at Gate 6. They are quickly surrounded by the raging public. Ground staff announces that the flight has landed but the DGCA authorities are not allowing the Flying Captain of this flight to continue flying to Hyderabad because his flying hours quota is over. Their supervisor is talking to the DGCA authorities and simultaneously arranging for a new Pilot and his crew to take the passengers to Hyderabad. But this will take time. Ground staff was not ready to give an assurance of a departure time even then. "We are trying our best to make sure that the flight departs at 0330 hours but it depends on the availability of a Flying Captain". Heated arguments take place. Expletives come pouring down like the wrath of the God himself.

The real question that Spicejet authorities were not able to answer was .. Why was not an alternative Flying Captain and the crew arranged for Hyderabad trip when the plane was diverted to Ahmedabad? Is Spicejet really not able to calculate the flying hours of its crew or did they hope DGCA would allow the same crew?

One is guilty oneself of not behaving like a gentleman. Although in one's defense one needed to vent out. After 10 minutes of mindless venting and shouting, one realised that the ground staff is totally incompetent and incapable of providing any solution whatsoever. One turned to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's Afreen Afreen to soothe the nerves and then to twitter to spread the word.

Here are some tweets

This happened till 0200 hours. There was still no official announcement on when the flight will depart. After people made ruckus about it, one received a text from Spicejet : TD-SJ-ITN : "Dear Passenger, your flight SG-408 dated 16-Oct-11 is delayed and will now depart at 03:00 hrs from Mumbai. We regret the inconvenience caused"

The Angry crowd was not ready to give in. They wanted compensation for "the inconvenience caused" and not just the "regret".

Tea was arranged by Spicejet employees for the crowd. People began to realise that there is a Telangana bandh in the city so there will not be any Aeroexpress services. They asked Spicejet ground staff to provide a drop facilities for the passengers -atleast for the old people above age of 50 years and families with ladies and kids. On this the Spicejet manager and supervisor called their counterparts in Hyderabad and agreed to the demand. They were still not ready to give the same in writing. Or an email. Or a text. Or be on video quoting the same.

Finally, everyone boarded the flight by 0340 hrs which then took off at around 0400 hours after necessary clearance. Interesting thing to note here was that the cabin crew still did not apologise for the blunder that the airline had committed. They did so only after the passengers demanded an apology.

Since, one is weird enough to find humour in situations like this as well. One found this particular reply of one of the Spicejet employee particularly funny. This was when the chap was being bombarded with choicest of blessings.

Finally, the flight landed at around 0510 hours in the morning and one knew that a precious working day was lost. There were no Aeroexpress buses because of Telangana bandh but the radio taxis came to the rescue.

However, the lies of Spicejet did not end with the journey. After what could be called "being unconscious" for a few hours, one found this tweet from @flyspicejet in one's mentions tab.

..and "in touch" their "rep" did. One did expect the standard statement in the first half of the tweet to be repeated multiple times. And repeat he did. However, on asking about any sort of compensation he promptly replied that the refreshments were served and there will not be any compensation. Bollocks. So, one's sleepless night is worth a cup of tea. Spicejet really knows how to treat the cattle class.

Moreover, one's complaint about the actual cause of delay, i.e. mismanagement by Spicejet staff to arrange another pilot and the crew was taken as a passing comment. No details on why it took close to 4-5 hours to get the crew functional were given.

One also received an email from the Customer Relations, Spicejet. Excerpts:

Please note that this flight was coming in from Kolkata to Mumbai and was supposed to operate further from Mumbai to Hyderabad. The flight from Kolkata got diverted to Ahmedabad due to bad weather and was further delayed on account of certain operational reasons.

and ..

Please note that as per our telecom dated 17^th October 2011 we apologise for the inconvenience caused due to the long delay. As per the delay policy refreshments were served to all guests at the airport.

Hence we would not be in a position to offer compensation in this case.

The complete email and all the tweets can be seen at this storify link.

The email ended with:

Assuring you of our best attention at all times.

One can just end the post with .. Assuring you of one's least attention, i.e. unchecked check-box against Spicejet whilst looking for flights at all times.

P.S. If you are one of the co-passengers of the Bombay-Hyderabad SG408 flight on October 16, 2011 and want to share your grief, please let it flow.

Help us win USD 1000 for Aashayein Foundation.

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 05:36:00 +0000

Just follow these simple steps to help us win USD 1000 for Aashaayein Foundation:

Step 1: Like the Twestival page by clicking 'Like'.

Step 2: Click on the image below to view our entry for the competition. Please click 'Like' below the Purple Charminar!

Thanks for your time. We hope you will 'like' our Hyderabad Twestival page for more updates.

Final Tally: Help Me. Help Them.

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:31:00 +0000

First things First. I humbly bow to all of you wonderful people for the kind of support that you have shown and for pure awesomeness you possess! This has to be by far the best birthday ever.

In my previous post here, I had pledged Rs 0.50p for every wish I get on my twitter page, my blog's facebook page and in the comments section of the previous post. Also, I requested people if they could come forward and donate their money to the iGive Pledge Page that I had created for the purpose.

After seeing the number of wishes on my personal Facebook profile, orkut account and number of phone calls I received from my dear friends, I decided to include them as well. So, here is the final tally

Twitter 255
FaceBook 180
Orkut 80
Phone Calls/SMSes 50
Blog Comments 9
Total: 574

Also, instead of Rs. 0.50p per wish, I am now donating Rs 2 per wish. Rs. 1148 is what I have donated on my pledge page.

Thanks to Praveen and Sangeetha, the total amount donated to ARDAR [Official Website] [GiveIndia Page] is now Rs. 2648. I am glad to say that it is more than twice the target I had in my mind.

Thanks everyone!

PS: If there is still someone who wants to donate, please go ahead. The page is active till midnight.

Help Me. Help Them.

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:26:00 +0000

Dear All,

I would like to draw your attention a little detail of my life. I'll be turning 25 this August 1. They say 25 is a big number. So, I wanted to celebrate it in a different manner. With the people who are less fortunate.

The entire inspiration for this thing came to my mind after reading about #DeepWish here. A classic example of a simple effort started by an individual. Others lent a helping hand. And, Voilà!! More than Rs.50,000 was collected. I fell in love with humanity and social media at that instant. Not in that specific order though.

Now, here is the thing. I am pledging to donate Rs.0.50p for every wish that I get on the day of my birthday i.e. August 1. Here on my blog. Or at my twitter page. Or at facebook page. Spammers would not be counted. . ~~Its a very humble start. Naysayers may call me a miser, but I don't want to put my mouth in an uncharted territory!~~

I would be giving out the money to GiveIndia. It is one platform that allows you to donate to a number of the NGOs working for various social issues. The best part being that they send out a feedback on how your money was actually spent. They track each and every transaction made through them. More details about the money flow here. A simple chart should suffice though:

I have chosen Association for Rural Development and Action Research (ARDAR) [Official Website] [GiveIndia Page] for this purpose based on the feedback I received from an earlier association with them. They would be utilising the money for Campus Challenge (A Regional Centre for ~~Disability~~ Differently-Abled Children).

Gifts, you say? Dont waste your money on me :) If you are feeling generous and want to help in this cause, I have created an iGive page. Minimum donation amount is INR 100. GiveIndia will process every donation and provide you with a receipt for the same. Since, its my iGive page, I will receive the feedback from the NGO (which comes in 6-8 months). I will update the blog with the same. The page would be active for collections from July 31, 2010 to August 2, 2010.

Even if I am able to generate a similar interest in 2 more people, I would consider this as Mission Accomplished.

Cheers
PP

PS - Please do not call it a Social Experiment. If you want to give it a fancy name, use Charity by Crowdsourcing.

What can Rajnikanth do?

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 17:53:00 +0000

All bow!!

The idea of this post came to me when I was reading this insightful post - "The 3 Types of Knowledge". For all the lazy bums, I would reproduce the crux of the theory below.

I started to wonder that the above graph applies for lesser mortals like us. However, this would not and should not apply to someone like Rajnikanth. But ofcourse, Thalaivar knows it all.

For the uninitiated, which potentially rules out entire South India and major parts of the rest of the India, Singapore and Japan including this guy, Rajnikanth defines the orbit on which moon revolves around the earth. Oh Ignorant Soul, living on the face of Earth, watch this to see Rajnikanth in action:

Rajnikanth also helps poor animators to earn a living!

Coming back to the point, so what can our Thalaivar do? After a lot of thinking and some more thinking, I have reached to the following conclusion:

But then any Maths student can tell you that above pie chart has one technical flaw! This kind of info can be and should be represented by only Venn Diagrams!! So here you go...

Credits: Thanks to the guy who put up the Rajnikanth pic here.

You can watch me imitate Rajnikanth here and here. Also, welcome any other funny ideas!!

Review: Online Bookstores in India

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 20:17:00 +0000

It started as a simple book-ordering exercise a ~~couple of weeks~~ month back. I had ordered books from Landmark and Flipkart.com earlier as well and saved a lot of moolah! This time I thought of going a little extra and compare the various popular online bookstores in India.

Criteria:

I only looked at the websites that were offering me a delivery without any Shipping Charges. ebay.in, IndiaTimes.com and IndiaPlaza.in were struck from the list because they did not have free shipping. For your info, ebay has Rs. 50 as Shipping Charges, Indiatimes.com has Rs. 25 and Indiaplaza.in has Rs. 31 Shipping Charges.
While shopping for books, you will see that the same title is being offered by many publishers. This leads to a price difference between different editions. My basic criterion was the price of the book. I did not care about the Publisher or whether the book was being offered as Paperback/Hardcover or even as an ebook. I just picked the cheapest edition.

Cost Analysis:

I did the complete exercise and tabulated this data on May 23, 2010. There might have been price changes after that.

	Landmark	Flipkart	infibeam	Rediff	Odyssey
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking	Rs. 299	Rs. 239	Rs. 469*	Rs. 210	Rs. 254
The Catcher in the Rye	Rs. 498	Rs. 239	Rs. 239	Rs. 50**	Rs. 254
Catch-22	Rs. 313	Rs. 257	Rs. 163	Rs. 125#	Rs. 302
Dork: The Incredible Adventures of Robin Einstein Varghese	Rs. 138	Rs. 149	Rs. 149	Rs. 138	Rs. 169
I Too Had a Dream	Rs. 395	Rs. 356	Rs. 251	Rs. 295	N/A
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character)	Rs. 340	Rs. 361	Rs. 340	Rs. 340	N/A
No, Prime Minister - Sudhir Tailang	Rs. 200	N/A	Rs. 176	N/A	N/A
They've got your number	Rs. 399	Rs. 339	Rs. 319	Rs. 399	N/A

* infibeam was giving out the e-book edition for Blink. I was surprised that it costed more than the paper edition.

** Call it as a bug (if you've positive outlook) or a trick to dupe (for brethren with negative outlook) but Rediff has a strange methodology. When I searched for "The Catcher in the Rye", it said

"Offered by 12 sellers in Hardcover/Paperback format.Price Range: Rs. 50 to Rs 2160"

However, after I click on the search results, it showed me that the book is for Rs. 238.

# This one was a bit strange. Rediff said that Landmark is offering me Catch 22 for Rs. 125. However, Landmark's website did not have the same edition.

I finally ordered the following books. Savings in (italics):

Blink(Rs. 85) from Rediff - Total Savings Rs. 8 5
Catcher in the Rye (Rs. 60), Catch 22 (Rs. 162), I too had a Dream (Rs. 44), They've Got Your Number (Rs. 80) from infibeam - Total Savings Rs. 346
Surely, You're Joking Mr. Feynman (Rs. 85), Dork (Rs. 61) and No, Prime Minister (Rs. 0) from Landmark. - Total Savings Rs. 146

Delivery:
I placed the order just after midnight on May 24, 2010.

Infibeam had promised 8-12 days of delivery on "They've Got Your Number" and 4-7 days for others. I received everything well in time. All books except "They've .." were received on the second day of placing order i.e. May 25th. The last one on the 5th day, i.e. May 28th.
Rediff's book delivery was also well within time. Received the book on May 25th!
Landmark's book delivery came on May 26th. Here also, there was no delay as it was well within the promised delivery time.

Miscellaneous:

Although, I was not expecting any goodies except the huge savings, but still just for the sake of mentioning here (and not increasing the blog length) , I also got

Bookmarks on my order with infibeam. To think of it, Landmark and Rediff should've sent those as well!!
Landmark's package came with their Newsletter.

I was obliged to order No, Prime Minister from Landmark despite it was Rs. 24 costlier because of this:

And the next day ...

Full marks for Customer Service!!!

I found this website http://isbn.net.in/ while researching for this blogpost. It is "a quick way to find the online prices for a book in India." You can compare the prices of a book based on its ISBN.

Results of the Experiment:

Savings to the tune of Rs. 600 in all!!
This blogpost!!

In all seriousness, if I have to chose a winner amongst all the Online Book-Stores, it would be infibeam with Landmark a close second although it has its own technical issues. e.g. at the time of publishing, landmarkonthenet.com was down! Flipkart.com comes out to be a little costlier. Rediff has its UI issues as I mentioned above. Lastly, Odyssey needs to stock up more books!

If you liked this post, you can Like the Facebook Page here and/or follow me on twitter here.

A Typical Indian Traffic Light Scenario

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 10:21:00 +0000

This post is dedicated to Men in White aka Pandus without whom the entire idea of this post would not have been possible. They have a crucial role in each chart !!

Point to Note: 1. "Bribing Police" and "Beautiful Girl" sectors are always mutually exclusive considering the "chivalry" of Pandus in mind.

Do mention any other comical ideas you want to see in graphical format in the comments section :)

HRA Exemption aka Income Tax ki chori !

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 13:05:00 +0000

Prologue: In India, the adult population has to go through an experience. Only a few have an honest experience. A major chunk just fakes it. No, I am not talking about orgasms here. The experience here is to pay your Income Tax. Call me a fool. I do it.

Pop question: How many of you have seen/submitted fake rent receipts to claim HRA? Heck I have seen, people living in their own homes doing that. Ever wondered, why? Ofcourse, 'saving' Income Tax.

But, how much effect does that have on your IT Return in numbers?? This is what caught my mind.

According to the official website of the Income Tax Department, the computation for HRA is done as follows: [link]

Out of house rent allowance received during the year, least of the following three amounts will not be included in income: -

The amount equal to 50% of annual salary, for persons staying in Mumbai, Chennai, Calcutta or Delhi, but 40%, for others
The actual amount of house rent allowance received
The amount of rent actually paid in excess of 10% of annual salary

Here, salary includes basic salary, dearness allowance, and commission on fixed percentage, but not other allowances.

Yeah, it says Calcutta. And not, Kolkatta. Super.

Also, it does not include Bangalore err Bengaluru which in my honest opinion should be.

Coming back to the point, I started with basic assumptions. A dude X working day and night to earn the following:

Basic Salary: Rs. 20000
HRA Allowance: Rs 10000
Other Allowance: Rs. 10000
Total Salary: Rs 40000
Annual Salary: Rs 480000

As you can see, I have just picked up these figures for demonstration purposes. To make my calculations easier.

I made one more assumption here. That the Dude X was wise enough to make an investment of Rs. 100000 to genuinely save some Income Tax.

So, after keeping everything constant, and just changing one variable. i.e. Rent paid, I come to the following awesome graph.

So, in the current fiscal year, one can actually 'save' a cool Rs. 20000!! In the next fiscal year, keeping in mind the tax slabs proposed in the Union Budget, one can still 'save' Rs. 12000 ! Twenty grands is enough money as a motivation for people to cheat their way into the system. People respond to incentives. Having Rs. 20000 more to their disposal is a big enough incentive for such people to fake the rent receipts.

And, if you have not noticed as of now, only 500 such people are required to bereft Government of India of Rs 1 crore in taxes! With this I can easily assume that only the four metros combined are depriving India of hundreds of crores of tax money!

Solution. You ask.

Easy. Include the PAN Number of both the tenant and the landlord in the declaration. So, an exempt for one becomes as taxable income for the other. The money is accounted for.

A simple step can save Government so much money. I read about one such incident in US tax history in the book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (P.S.). The effect of such a method was that at the midnight of April 15, 1987, about seven million American children suddenly disappeared!! That was 1 out of 10 American children!! The taxpayers were using these dummy children in their tax declarations to get tax exemptions in the form of child benefits. The Internal Revenue Service changed the rule of just listing the name of the dependent child to providing the Social Security Number of the child as well.

I deliberately wrote this post today keeping in mind the last date of IT filing is on March 31! The optimistic in me believes that this might make a difference.

If you think there are other ways of solving this problem, please post in the comments.

UPDATE June 25, 2010: I just got this link to an ET news source. "Employee can be dismissed for forging rent receipt: HC" This is a nice step by Hon'ble Delhi High Court. Thanks, Zuber Khan for the tip.

What I like about Pakistan.

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 10:57:00 +0000

Prologue: To the old lion and his cubs sitting in Mumbai, .|..

Pakistan. Pak. Pure. Ahh, Qaid-e-Azam what did you do. Never mind this is a light post.

All through my childhood, I have been taught to embrace the good in the people and make a solid dump on the bad and the ugly. (No, my Mom-Dad are not a Clint Eastwood fan. I AM.) So, I thought that there must be something pure in Pakistan still left. And, an immediate answer came to me was Yes.
How can one forget Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan? Abida Parveen? But, these are the names (besides Adnan Sami) that most of us are already familiar with. So, I tried to dig more into my likings and found following things that I really like about Pakistan.

Here I go.

1. Women. Not all Tom, Dick and Harry.. rather not all Hina, Mira and Fatima. The ones who go to watch cricket live in the stadiums. I still remember Indian tour of Pakistan in 2004 because of Virendar Sehwag's triple century and the Pakistani lady cricket fans.

Sample this:

Who need stupid cheerleaders when you can watch Noor-e-Jehan watching the game ?? Not me, definitely.

2. Hollywood movies dubbed in Punjabi. This section might not be of an interest to people who do not know even an iota of Punjabi. Personally, I know only a few words and my broken usage will dwarf the smoothness of Indian village roads.
My passion for such dubbed movies started when a friend of mine from Chandigarh gave me a CD of Spiderman dubbed in Punjabi. I was ROFL-ing LMAO-ing the entire day after seeing that. I earlier thought that this dubbing is done in India but then some folks told me that this is a pure Pakistani phenomenon.

There is a YouTube channel by the name Punjaagi Totay which has hilarious stuff. It not only has clips of Hollywood movies dubbed in Punjabi but also other stuff like Sunil Gavaskar telling about the pitch before the start of an IPL game.

3. Coke Studio. Out of all the things I have mentioned now perhaps this is the one I like most. This is a brilliant initiative to showcase Pakistan's musical talent to the general audiences. Its Wikipedia link says :

"The show provides a platform for renowned as well as upcoming and less mainstream artists, from various genres and regions, to collaborate musically in live studio recording sessions."

Artists like Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Strings, Ali Azmat, Atif Aslam and Shafqat Amanat Ali (ex-Vocalist of Fuzon) have featured on Coke Studio.
You can download mp3s and videos from their official website. I prefer the videos from their Youtube channel which are of a better quality.
Embedding a few videos that have been my favourites. Enjoy :)

The last one is a poem by Omar Khayyam in Pashto. Its Urdu lyrics and English translation can be found here.

Here, I need to give a special mention to Indian TV. Dude, you suck. It would be really great if you could have some thing like Coke Studio for Indian audiences as well. Or do you think that it wont sell as much as the Swayamwars and other related stuff that you show to us?

On the ending note, most people take the name of their deities. Since this is a Pakistan related post, let me post the pic of a woman .. err.. gorgeous woman in Pakistani attire whom I consider not less than a deity. Ladies and gentlemen, presenting before you Secretary General of Junior UN.

Peace.

P.S. 1. These interests of mine are not in a specific order except Women precede everything. Humour is the essence of my life. Music is that keeps me insane in my office sanity. Go figure, you logical reasoning nerds.

P.S. 2. I also love all the Pathan jokes that are famous in Pakistan. Here in India we know them as Sardar jokes. So not much difference there :)

P.S. 3 If there are any GrammarGandus in this post, do point them out in the comments.

What Late PM Indira Gandhi had to say about Telangana ?

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 11:20:00 +0000

Disclaimer: I have taken the speech of Late PM Indira Gandhi from RAJAGOPALAN1951: 40 years before what Indira Gandhi spoke on united andhra pradesh. Sadly, there are no official archives from where I can verify the transcript. I would be glad if I am directed to any such link in future. I have reformatted the post at the aforementioned link to a more human-readable form.

40 years earlier what INDIRA GANDHI SPOKE ON UNITED ANDHRA PRADESH
Emails like this are now sent in huge numbers by Rayapati Sambasiv Rao MP

POINTS IN THE SPEECH MADE
ON 21^STDECEMBER 1972 IN LOK SABHA

BY INDIRA GANDHI
ON
UNITED ANDHRA PRADESH

The Prime Minister, Minister Of Atomic Energy, Minister Of Electronics, Minister Of Home Affairs, Minister Of Information And Broadcasting And Minister Of Space (Shrimati Indira Gandhi): Mr. SPEAKER, SIR, there is really not much need for me to speak as my colleague, Shri Chavan, has brought a cooler and calmer atmosphere to prevail in the House and has dealt with really important points. But some Hon. Members even of the opposition had earlier expressed the opinion that it might be misunderstood if I did not clearly state our views on some points which have been mentioned here before. They are not new, nevertheless, they thought I should do so and that is why I have got up.

Parliament discusses many important issues which are highly emotional, and the Mulki rules have become one such issue. Matters which involve regional feelings quite often do arouse the emotions of the people in this country as in many other countries, and we certainly cannot ignore the emotions of the people. But I should like to stress what Chavanji has said, that no solution can be found while the atmosphere remains charged with emotions. Any solutions, any answer, has to be found in a very cool, calm and rational manner.
Therefore, although I was also, as were many other Hon. Members, touched by the emotions expressed by Hon. Members, by the difficulties of our friends from Telengana and friends from other parts of Andhra Pradesh, we were certainly touched by the difficulties and emotions – I should very respectfully say to them that all these matters have to be thought of not in terms of emotion but in terms of calm and collective thought. And not in terms of today or tomorrow or the day after but of what it will mean to them and the country ten years hence, 20 years hence, a hundred years hence.
Naturally, if you put to the people that a particular development has affected their employment, it has affected their rights they will become emotional. Anybody will become emotional. “I do not know how many people have gone to the public at large and said, “let us sit down and think about it, what difference will it make in terms of employment in terms of the other opportunities for the people in the Telengana region, for the people in the other districts of Andhra Pradesh”? So, I do not think that the issue has been fully and squarely put before all the people there. Therefore, the reaction today has to be also viewed in that light”.
“The state of Hyderabad was the largest of the old princely states. One Hon. Member has said and rightly that in this state there were individuals, there were families of very high culture. But for the vast majority of the people there was poverty, they had not had opportunities of education or social welfare or of public health or any kind of amelioration of their living conditions. When the composite Andhra state came into being all sections of the people recognised that for greater cohesions certain special measures of a transitory nature were necessary. The leaders of the people unanimously arrived at a Gentlemen’s Agreement which we all accepted”.
“So, there was this agreement. Now, regardless of any agreement we all know that even within a family there are differences and disputes. There is no state in India which does not have backward areas. Relatively backward and advanced areas exist not only in all states but in different regions of the same state. In the Andhra region many members have drawn attention to areas such as Rayalseema and Srikakulam. The Telengana region may be a backward region but it does have better-off areas”.
“Merely because an area is comparatively backward is not reason enough for taking drastic or irreversible decisions. Where will this process end? I am not at all afraid of this being catching; that is not the point. But where does any one draw the line? Will each district want to be separate? Some people have advised the division of U.P. where to divide into two, three, four, into how many areas do you divide it? Do you go back to the old, very small states, princely states; do you go back to that? Somewhere a line has to be drawn. You cannot just say that because of backwardness there should be division. As Chavanji has rightly pointed out, economic backwardness can go only through hard work and the effort of the entire nation.
While there will always be sympathy and understanding for the special hardship of the backwardness of any special hardship of the backwardness of any special group or any special area. I do not thing that anyone should be allowed to develop a vested interest in backwardness”.
“I should like to re-assure him that this is not at all the case I do not want to go into the details of this”. But I think his fears are unfounded. We had also to counter the past assurances given to the people of Telengana area with regard to public employment and also their present needs. We have not at all gone back on any assurance given and I should like to re-assure the Hon. Members that we are deeply concerned with their problems. But we feel that this is not the way of solving them. “In fact, as I said on an earlier occasion, merely talking of separation is not an end of the problem. It is the beginning of another very big problem, not for other states but also for that area; that state itself”. The decisions which we announced on the 27^th November, 1972 were in the response to the request by the leaders of the state; they themselves have said that we should do something.
“I stand very family for an integrated state, but I should like to say that so far as this matter is concerned, even had there been two states, it would have made no difference to this bill because it deals mainly with the problem of the twin cities and also the rest of Telengana. That problem would remain no matter what other things you do because a large number of non-mulk is there. Unfortunately, even in the speeches have some little bitterness crept in. It does not matter how many states we have, you still will be neighbours and you still will have to deal with one another in a hundred and one things. Thinking that just because you are separated, you can get rid of these people or we have got rid this problem is a very facile way of thinking. Our experience has not shown that this comes true”.
“Recognizing the fact that the capital belongs to both regions, the central government has decided to repeal the Mulki rules in the twin cities three years earlier than in the remaining Telengana region. Even during the intervening period, employment opportunities in the capital are being extended and educational facilities expanded for the citizens of the other regions of Andhra Pradesh also”.
“A third point was that Telengana is not the only backward area in the state”.
“Sir, Parliament represents the will of the whole nation. Its duty is not merely to go into the rights and wrongs of a situation but also to view problems from the national point of view; Shri Chavan has stressed this point. But I would like to repeat it. While all of us here are elected from particular constituencies, once we are here in this hall. I think we should consider ourselves not as merely the representatives of one little area but as the representatives of the whole country and the entire people of India. And each problem has to be viewed from that angle”.
The very first article of our constitution declares that India is a union of states. Each state has had a long cultural and historical tradition and each state has become a political entity in its own special way. Andhra Pradesh has been a distinctive cultural unit for thousands of years. The name has been found in the earliest Buddhist writings. All the parts which now constitute Andhra Pradesh have been under one umbrella for long periods of history. Let us not look at just the immediate period of history.
Perhaps, it was this long history which inspired the Telugu speaking people when they yearned and struggled for several decades to form a unified Andhra Pradesh. May I cite a little bit of my personal experience? I happened to be touring parts of the south just before the report of the states reorganization commission was made public and my ears are still reverberating with the full-throated cries of Vishal Andhra… (interruptions). It was really the will of the Telugu-specking people which prevailed over the proposal of some people to retain the old Hyderabad state”.
“There are some things which are part of our national life. It is true that the question of linguistic states was very much a part of the national movement. There was no getting away from it. The units of every party which was in existence at a time, were formed on the basis of language in spite of the British provinces having different areas. There is an overall rationality in the formation of our various states and we should be very careful not to break this foundation of rationality in momentary passions. As I said at the beginning we should consider the feelings of people but it would be very wrong for the government to be swept away by feelings. We must see what is in the larger interest of the people themselves. We are not saying that the interest of the people of Telengana should be sacrificed for our interest or for the interest of other parts of India. But the government must think in a very calm manner about the interest of the people of that very region and see what will serve their interest best”.
“I am sure that no telugu-speaking person whether he lives in the coastal region or in Rayalseema or in Telengana will ever do anything even in anger or in desperation which is not in the larger interest of their entire state and also in the interest of the country as a whole. I can understand the emotions of our friends here. This has been a period of great agony for us all to watch the developments in Andhra Pradesh and the tragedies that are taking place. I also should like to express my deep sympathy with the parents and families of those who have lost their lives. But we must look at this matter in the larger perspective”.

Also, I found a link on Telangana in US Congress Library. You can read the entire article here. It gives an insight on Telangana issue. Too bad, that I could not find any official link from Indian Archives.

CopyRight - Is it Right to Copy or an instruction to Copy Rightly !!

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:20:00 +0000

Ok ! First the Melodrama. My heart is broken. The last time I was sad in Y2K when I found that Hansie Cronje has confessed of match-fixing. This time its Bollywood. I have always seen on TV that Anu Malik gets truly "inspired" from others' music but now its Pritam.

Well, Pritam is getting "inspired" since beginning of his career. So for some this must be a stale news, I found out the same when a colleague of mine sent me a complete list of songs - both Originals and Inspired ones.

I did little research and found this great website - www.itwofs.com - totally dedicated to Plagiarism aka Inspiration 101 in Bollywood. Itwofs stands for Inspiration in Film Songs. This is the official name as per the website. According to me, though, it should be Inspiration TO Film Songs !! But who listens to me, anyways .. *grunt*

So, Here is a short .. err .. a very short list of the inspired tracks. I have just included the songs that I liked. In the left is the Original Song and in the Right is the Inspired Song. For a complete list please go here and here. When you will see the list of the songs, you will find that Pritam has a fetish for musicians from Koreans, Indonesians, Pakistanis and Arabs.

*Phew*

Observation: Based on the inspiration (read:cheat) thats going on, I predict Pritam would be a politician sometime soon.

Cheers
PP

Welcome Mr. Bachchan ...

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 09:36:00 +0000

This post is a reply to Mr. Bachchan's post here. I am trying to do this in a personalised letter form though I havent written any actual mails to anyone since we practised this in our English classes back in school days.

Dear Mr. Bachchan

I am sure this mail finds you in best of your health, otherwise, I would not have been writing this mail. I would have been hovering around my TV looking for dumb (could you please suggest a more insulting word for this? thanks!!!) reporters reporting about your health.

I got an oppurtunity to come across your blog today and was glad to know that you are in Hyderabad. Mr. Bachchan .. Sir .. please let me take this oppurtunity to welcome you in the City of gone-Nizams. You might find yourselves a little less popular here in the land of Mr. Chiranjeevi et al. But, Sir let me assure you that I wont leave a stone unturned in making you feel special. Although, you might be enjoying your stay at Hotel Sitara (for lesser mortals, this is a 5 star Hotel in Ramoji City).

Coming back to your post, Sir, I share the same symapthy/apathy for the "critics". This phenomenon could be partly due to the fact that these belong to a category of professionls called reporters. But the major reason, as you pointed out are these people are like Marketing professionals in a firm with a little twist. Mostly these are Marketing professionals of other firms in the same field. So a critic working for Channel X would "like" a movie if his/her bosses' name appeared in the Cast List whether in direct form or indirectly as a production firm. Otherwise, the movie is screwed big time.

Sir, please allow me to quote you over here.

Media reports coming out within a day of the release, then become yardsticks of judgement. But opinions that are poles apart, merely explain this - it is best to see it yourself and make your own assessment. Like it or hate it at least you have the satisfaction of not having been misled.

I agree in totality with you on this. I havent watched Dilli6 or D6 yet but eagerly waiting to do so over the coming week. I hope it doesnt fall in the same category as Refugee or Swades or Lakshya. Exceptionally brilliant films with not so brilliant collecitons at B.O. I guess these are also preys to the critic community.

Frankly and honestly, I cant compare "Slumdog Millionaire" to Delhi 6 in any way. SM had child actors of all ages playing their parts beautifully on screen. D6 has professional actors with acting in their veins. Their performances can be compared if and only if the performances of D6 actors is way above SM's. Ofcourse, keeping the variables of script, direction etc as constant. I hope I put my point as modestly I could.

I hope you enjoy your stay in Hyderabad, my home for past 8 months now. If you can find time from your busy schedule, do pay a visit to Chowmahalla Palace. Its near Char Minar and Mecca Masjid.

I hope I need not mention that if you need anything, you know whom to ask for.

Cheers
PP

My New Year Resolution ...

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 09:39:00 +0000

As you know New Year is coming up and almost every one of you would be planning what gifts to buy for your near and dear ones .. and yeah .. planning your New Year Resolutions as well. These resolutions might range from losing weight to stop drinking/smoking or even getting a job in this recession. Barring the people suffering from the last scenario, I would like to share my New Year Resolution for the year 2009 with rest of the junta. But first, the buildup.

Right now I am reading a book .. Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish .. by Rashmi Bansal an IIMA alumuns. The book is abt 25 IIM alumni who have turned into entrepreneurs and succeeded in the same. Its not a literary read at all with the language used over there but still it could be a source of inspiration. In one of the chapters, I read about Mr. Venkat Krishnan a Class 0f 93 alumnus who started a program called GiveIndia in 1999. The url of the organisation is www.giveindia.org. Its a simple step of connecting the donors with the certified NGOs who are working towards the upliftment of society. Moreover, it gives you a feedback of how your money was spent.

Coming to the point, I have decided to donate my one day salary every month to a program of my choice. All the programs are neatly classified into various categories including Children, Women, Disabled, Youth, Education and Employment being the prominent ones.

I would like to request you to please look at the link. The best step from there could be that you donate some amount of your choice .. and a good step would be to atleast forward this information to people you know so that they get a chance to look at it and may be donate something to a cause of their choice ..

PP
UPDATE: Thanks to Amita and Tarika from GiveIndia.org for telling me another way to help you people. As most of you have noticed there is a GiveIndia.org banner on the left side of the page now. All you GoodFellas (no offence to Mafia intended !) are requested to add the banner of your choice from the link http://www.giveindia.org/t-banners.aspx#giveindia-banners. Dasvidaniyaan !!

An Early Christmas Greeting ..

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:45:00 +0000

Received this parody of "Santa Claus is coming to town .." as an Xmas greeting from an investment banker ... and I thought if the poor chap can take this joke so can the rest of the world .. Kudos to the soul who wrote this ..

You'd better watch out
You'd better not cry
You'd better keep cash
I'm telling you why:
Recession is coming to town.

It's hitting you once,
It's hitting you twice
It doesn't care if you've been careful and wise
Recession is coming to town

It's worthless if you've got shares
It's worthless if you've got bonds
It's safe when you've got cash in hand
So keep cash for goodness sake, HEY

You'd better watch out
You'd better not cry
You'd better keep cash
I'm telling you why:
Recession is coming to town!

Finance products are confusing
Finance products are so vague
The banks make you bear the cost of risk
So keep out for goodness sake,

You'd better watch out
You'd better not cry
You'd better keep cash
I'm telling you why:
Recession is coming to town.

Cheers
PP

A Letter to the Indian Prime Minister

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:55:00 +0000

I got this mail today as forward. One of the best after the recent incidents at Mumbai. Conveys all the feelings so beautifully. If only someone implements it.

Dear Mr. Prime minister

I am a typical mouse from Mumbai. In the local train compartment which has capacity of 100 persons, I travel with 500 more mouse. Mouse at least squeak but we don't even do that.

Today I heard your speech. In which you said 'NO BODY WOULD BE SPARED'. I would like to remind you that fourteen years has passed since serial bomb blast in Mumbai took place. Dawood was the main conspirator. Till today he is not caught. All our bolywood actors, our builders, our Gutka king meets him but your Government can not catch him. Reason is simple; all your ministers are hand in glove with him. If any attempt is made to catch him everybody will be exposed. Your statement 'NOBODY WOULD BE SPARED' is nothing but a cruel joke on this unfortunate people of India.

Enough is enough. As such after seeing terrorist attack carried out by about a dozen young boys I realize that if same thing continues days are not away when terrorist will attack by air, destroy our nuclear reactor and there will be one more Hiroshima.

We the people are left with only one mantra. Womb to Bomb to Tomb. You promised Mumbaikar Shanghai what you have given us is Jalianwala Baug.

Today only your home minister resigned. What took you so long to kick out this joker? Only reason was that he was loyal to Gandhi family. Loyalty to Gandhi family is more important than blood of innocent people, isn't it?

I am born and bought up in Mumbai for last fifty eight years. Believe me corruption in Maharashtra is worse than that in Bihar. Look at all the politician, Sharad Pawar, Chagan Bhujbal, Narayan Rane, Bal Thackray , Gopinath Munde, Raj Thackray, Vilasrao Deshmukh all are rolling in money. Vilasrao Deshmukh is one of the worst Chief minister I have seen. His only business is to increase the FSI every other day, make money and send it to Delhi so Congress can fight next election. Now the clown has found new way and will increase FSI for fisherman so they can build concrete house right on sea shore. Next time terrorist can comfortably live in those house , enjoy the beauty of sea and then attack the Mumbai at their will.

Recently I had to purchase house in Mumbai. I met about two dozen builders. Everybody wanted about 30% in black. A common person like me knows this and with all your intelligent agency & CBI you and your finance minister are not aware of it. Where all the black money goes? To the underworld isn't it? Our politicians take help of these goondas to vacate people by force. I myself was victim of it. If you have time please come to me, I will tell you everything.

If this has been land of fools, idiots then I would not have ever cared to write you this letter. Just see the tragedy, on one side we are reaching moon, people are so intelligent and on other side you politician has converted nectar into deadly poison. I am everything Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Schedule caste, OBC, Muslim OBC, Christian Schedule caste, Creamy Schedule caste only what I am not is INDIAN. You politician have raped every part of mother India by your policy of divide and rule.

Take example of former president Abdul Kalam. Such a intelligent person, such a fine human being. You politician didn't even spare him. Your party along with opposition joined the hands, because politician feels they are supreme and there is no place for good person.

Dear Mr Prime minister you are one of the most intelligent person, most learned person. Just wake up, be a real SARDAR. First and foremost expose all selfish politician. Ask Swiss bank to give name of all Indian account holder. Give reins of CBI to independent agency. Let them find wolf among us. There will be political upheaval but that will better than dance of death which we are witnessing every day. Just give us ambient where we can work honestly and without fear. Let there be rule of law. Everything else will be taken care of.

Choice is yours Mr. Prime Minister. Do you want to be lead by one person or you want to lead the nation of 100 Crore people?
Prakash B. Bajaj
Chandralok 'A" Wing, Flat No 104
97 Nepean Sea Road
Mumbai 400 036
Phone 98210-71194

I dont know if this is a real person or fake. But the feelings are for sure real.

Cheers
PP

Hello Hyderabad

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:03:00 +0000

This is how hyderabad looks at 11 pm. This picture was taken from a window at a 'mall' Hyderabad Central. Though its more of a 'mandi'.

Graduation (Friends Forever)

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 16:56:00 +0000

Dedicated to all the colleagues here at DEI .. with whom the experiences were awesome (though there are cases where the experience was awful rather) But in any case ... i will never forget these days

Artist: Vitamin C Lyrics
Song: Graduation (Friends Forever) Lyrics

And so we talked all night about the rest of our lives
Where we're gonna be when we turn 25
I keep thinking times will never change
Keep on thinking things will always be the same
But when we leave this year we won't be coming back
No more hanging out cause we're on a different track
And if you got something that you need to say
You better say it right now cause you don't have another day
Cause we're moving on and we can't slow down
These memories are playing like a film without sound
And I keep thinking of that night in June
I didn't know much of love
But it came too soon
And there was me and you
And then we got real blue
Stay at home talking on the telephone
We'd get so excited, we'd get so scared
Laughing at ourselves thinking life's not fair
And this is how it feels

[1] - As we go on
We remember
All the times we
Had together
And as our lives change
Come Whatever
We will still be
Friends Forever

So if we get the big jobs
And we make the big money
When we look back now
Will our jokes still be funny?
Will we still remember everything we learned in school?
Still be trying to break every single rule
Will little brainy Bobby be the stockbroker man?
Will Heather find a job that won't interfere with her tan?
I keep, I keep thinking that it's not goodbye
Keep on thinking it's a time to fly
And this is how it feels

[Repeat 1]

La, la, la, la:
Yeah, yeah, yeah
La, la, la, la:
We will still be friends forever

Will we think about tomorrow like we think about now?
Can we survive it out there?
Can we make it somehow?
I guess I thought that this would never end
And suddenly it's like we're women and men
Will the past be a shadow that will follow us 'round?
Will these memories fade when I leave this town
I keep, I keep thinking that it's not goodbye
Keep on thinking it's a time to fly

[Repeat 1 (3x)]

One More Poetic Friend of Mine ...

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 16:05:00 +0000

One More Poetic Friend of Mine .. Ladies n Gentlemen .. may i present before you the closest of closest buddies of mine ... Shivank Bansal ... It has been quite a revelation for me too to know that he is a poet .. though he doesnt approve of this fact .. and repeats that this was just a creation by chance ... out of boredom !!!

Wherever I go ,
You go with me,
You lead ma path holding ma hand.

I seem to walk,
But you are my prop,
You walk with me,
Make my burdens light.

Whatever I blurt,
You make it sound right,
I hesitate no more,
You have made me bold.

To me every man,
Is mankind's guardian,
All are my darlings,
Soulmates.

In ma phrase,
I live as I please,
With me is the bliss,
And peace outside

Why cant we hold people we love ?

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 15:36:00 +0000

Why do people enter your life
If one day they will leave u alone in a mess,

Why do people show you the light
If they will push you into darkness,

Why do we trust people
When we know that they are lying,

Why do we fall in love
When we know we have to keep trying....

Relationships are not something
That are born in the morning and die in the evening..

But they are born when you dont need them at all,
And die, when you need them the most..

Why cant we hold on to the people we love???

This is an original composition by one of my friends who stands tall amongst others .. who wants to fly in the sky with no limits whatsover .. whose name itself tells about her nature .. one who gives shelter to others .. Ashrita ..(as shown in the figure above !!!)

Some Useful Links for Computer Science Students

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 13:11:00 +0000

hi people .. was just browsing the net when i came across this collection of links ...
i got it frm the IIIT-Bangalore Website... here is the complete list for your reference:

Developer Directory:
http://www.devlib.org

C/C++:
http://guideme.itgo.com/atozofc
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~jamie/C/
http://www.thefreecountry.com/sourcecode/cpp.shtml
http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial.html
http://www.programmersheaven.com/zone3/index.htm

Java:
http://www.javaranch.com
http://www.levteck.com
http://www.javaranch.com/mock.jsp
http://forum.java.sun.com/
http://www-130.ibm.com/developerworks/java/
http://www.javaworld.net
http://theserverside.com/
http://javaperformancetuning.com/
http://java.net/
http://freshmeat.net/browse/198/

OS development:
http://www.visopsys.org/osdev/

E-Books:
http://www.intelinfo.com/free_computer_books.html
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/subjectstart?QA
http://www.maththinking.com/boat/computerbooks.html
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/index.html
http://ostg.safaribooksonline.com/
http://catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/apb.html
http://catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/
http://www.filehash.com/search/
http://www.questia.com/Index.jsp

LAMP:
http://www.python.org/doc/tut/node2.html
http://www.php.net/manual/en/
http://www.linuxdevices.com/index.html
http://www-unix.mcs.anl.gov/dbpp/

General Reading :
http://www.howstuffworks.com
http://www.eweek.com

Words of Wisdom

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 17:15:00 +0000

This is an ever increasing post .. with new words of wisdom added as soon as they are read or created by me ...

I would love to change the world but they wont give me the source code !!

Human Psyche is really difficult to understand... A Woman's is impossible - Prem Piyush Goyal

I trust everyone .. its the devil inside that i dont trust - from the movie Italian Job

Kumar Birla shares his 9 big lessons

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 15:49:00 +0000

Anyone who is interested in management .. or wants to know the basics ... this article is a must read ...

Kumar Birla shares his 9 big lessons

My Biography

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Tue, 02 Aug 2005 16:53:00 +0000

though i am not mangal pandey .. nor i am mr. bachchan ... nor any other great person ... this 'paawan dhara' (sacred land) i.e. INDIA has ever produced ... but still .. i am me... wat a great achievement in itself ..

so who would write about me ... virtually no one ... but this gentleman .. Mr. Ogden Nash .. has written a poem of no less than 243 words ... or 45 lines ... describing mee...

this is a poem i read in my school ... so enjoy reading it .. and knowing me .. i hope that u r not the same ... bcz believe me ... its not worth existing if u dont participate .. and as of me ... read on ..

Confessions of a Born Spectator
One infant grows up and becomes a jockey,
Another plays basket ball or hockey,
This is one the prize ring hates to enter,
That one becomes a tackle or centre,
I am just as glad as glad can be
That I’m not them, that they’re not me.

With all my heart do I admire
Athletes who sweat for fun or hire,
Who take the field in gaudy pomp,
And maim each other as they romp,
My limp and bashful spirit feeds
On other people’s heroic deeds.

Now A runs ninety yards to score,
B knocks the champion to the floor.
C risking vertebrae and spine,
Lashes his steed across the line,
You’d think my ego it would please
To swap positions with one of these.

Well, ego might be pleased enough,
But zealous athletes play so rough,
They do not ever, in their dealings
Consider one another’s feelings.
I’m glad that when my struggle begins
Twixt prudence and ego, prudence wins.

When swollen eye meets gnarled fist
When snaps the knee, and cracks the wrist,
When calm officialdom demands
Is there a doctor in the stands?
My soul in true thanksgiving speaks
For this most modest physiques.

Athletes, I’ll drink to you
Or eat with you,
Or anything except compete with you,
Buy tickets worth their weight in radium,
To watch you gambol in a stadium
And reassure myself anew
That you’re not me and I’m not you.

I am 20

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 18:30:00 +0000

RadhaSoami ... I am 20 ... August 1 1985 was the day when i was born .. and now it is August 1 2005 ... 20 yrs I have been living in this beautiful world ... NO !! . I dont want to tell lies on my bday atleast ... many years of my life were spent in a hell known as Muzaffar Nagar ... where kidnapping is a full fledged industry ... where you will find the overnight millionaires .... I urge all my fellow Indians to bow in respect for the people at a Multi National Corporation with its headquarters somewhere in PAKISTAN... yes i am talking of ISI ... these people cant feed themselves .. they have to lick American balls to feed their children .. and they especialise in making innocent people of my nation .. the traitors ... the terrorists ... and the millionaires ... yes millionaires ... u give them some "important info'' anmd u can also become a millionaire ... isnt it a Alladin ka Chirag

its been six years since i have moved from that hell to this place ... which is also known as The City of Love ... due to The Taj Mahal .. yes AGRA ... what a transition ... RadhaSoami Dayal has really been very kind to me for bringing me close to HIM ...

A Void that can never be filled ...

noreply@blogger.com (Prem Piyush Goyal) — Tue, 24 May 2005 18:26:00 +0000

No one dear, no one has died… atleast in my vicinity. This is the day, the moment that I am talking. 20th May 2005 a day too normal for billions around – same babus take bribe in India, same “jehadis” in Pakistan , Iraq, Afghanistan and blah blah, a sting operation carried out somewhere, more babies being born in this world then the number dyin both natural and unnatural death. But does this move me at all? I am afraid not. Then wats the big deal abt this day that I was like the saddest person around. It is multi-fold.

Firstly, now we are three-fourth engineer or rather I should say indianmernok. This semester had been really tough for me. Typhoid had extracted juice out of me. But now the more important thing is I getting a zero out of 50 in a viva of my project that I could not attend due to the bloody disease. But with a great effort in persuading my project convener I might be getting something-better-than-nothing marks. So this chapter was closed.

Next, I have to lose three persons who recently became friends with me after a 16 month long cold war. But now they are going to far-off places. I wonder that I would be able to meet them or even see them again. My effort of taking a photograph was thwarted by my stupidity. The snaps were taken by the Great Indian Mernok without considering about the light required. Never matter I hope to have their memories alive in my heart n mind forever. Megha, Gira n Neha wat we called them by virtue of their official records. But off the record they had different names right from 2610 to lashkar-e-tayyeba. But I really miss them and I wonder would any one on this earth would be ever able to make up for them. Though this might seem to be a bit exaggeration of the fact but the truth is they were an important part of my friends circle.

Worst of all, my beloved seniors r now gone. The upper hand of these people was the most important thing that I cherished in my entire tenure at DEI. Suchit Sir, Yuvraj Sir, Neeraj Sir, Umang Sir, Vinay Sir, Sumeet Sir, Happy Sir and many many more who shaped my personality in one way or other and always in the correct directions directly or indirectly. I dunno what will be the effect of the absence of these people on my life. Though I might sound too girly bcz of all these “missing” business but the fact remains that these people had become an important part of my life. I hope the same from them too but I don’t expect it to be. As I will say never expect from the other side in a relationship to make it a success. But I will always regret one thing. That I was not available for the

‘Carpe Diem’ was the advice given by Umang Sir to me and he knew that I don’t know the meaning of this phrase. So he asked me to look for its meaning. And I was really elated by seeing the meaning of that phrase in the dictionary. Enjoy the Present it meant and I promise to follow that