The Bane of bachelorhood

I hate this. I hate packing up and vacating a home. Well, for me it has always been a home that I stay in and not just a house. So I dislike having to pack up and pull together my life and move on to another place and restart again. Yet, that is what I find myself doing time and again, forced by vagaries of bachelorhood. I have been living a working bachelor's life for under three years now and have resided in as many houses during this period. I had to move out of the first house when I (and my other roommates) changed employment and loyalties. I was then guided by my desire to avoid Bangalore's brain-numbing traffic and took residence in a far less favourable house, the construction of which was most awkward - Roark would have found it repugnant. So my stay there was shortlived and I moved into a small "penthouse" in a wonderful locality, strategically located with respect to keeping my daily commmute to the minimum and yet affording me a good lifestyle with all the modern conveniences and restaurants (the bachelor's mainstay)at walking distance.

Yet it has hardly been a year that I am forced tonight to sit and pack up my life into cartons and bags. Why, you might wonder. Because my roommate is now lucky and gets to move in with his parents and setup a home independently. To make things worse, I have to leave for foreign shores for a considerably lengthy period of time. Consequently my inability to find a compatible roommate (is that an elusive species) at this point of time, leaves me with little choice but to break my resolve of not moving out of my penthouse for a long time to come.

So this night finds me sifting through and packing all my stuff, getting ready to vacate a home. There is nothing more depressing than to leave town for a period of time, with the feeling that you cannot really return to a home of your own. I am left with the unenviable task of finding a roommate too upon my return. One other roommate left me in the August of last year. This second one, though like a paying guest (never really spent much time at home), was a good friend and human company atleast. Tonight the TV must fill the void.

But the optimist in me (yeah, I have one)tells me that things always work out for the better. I get to see more places in bangalore, get an opportunity to live with and make another friend for life. Lets see what life holds for me...Malleshwaram, here I come.

Whats all the SK brouhaha about?

Over past two days there has been a lot of media focus on the incarceration of Salman Khan over the Chinkara murder case so much so that it even shared frontpage headline space with the coverage on the Meerut fire tragedy. The conviction is a vindication of the efforts of the Bishnoi leaders and othe public vigilantes and a victory and cause for celebration for our civil society (we dont have many of these). But the film industry and some prominent page3 personalities seem to be outraged and feel that celebrities are being unfairly targetted. One of them remarked " I want to know why the man who killed Jessica Lall walked away free? A celebrity is a sitting duck. " Well so do I. I too feel outraged that someone could manipulate our judicial system and get away with murder. But how does that excuse Salman for what he did? If at all there was something perhaps unfair for SK in this whole drama, it was the public trial in media, independent of the one in courtroom. But then, thats the cost a celebrity has to pay. Like every other citizen, SK too can appeal.

A bullock cart hobbling along on three wheels...

The tired bullocks stumble along the dusty oft-beaten path. Your eyes rest for a while on their tired beseeching eyes, then on they drift and stop when you see the load the cart is carrying. Gunny bags laden with plump ripe mangoes - the cart is fully loaded with these to the point of tipping over and is headed for the warehouse where they will be encased in wooden chests. Most of them will be exported and will reach demanding markets on foreign shores, some of them will be consumed by discerning consumers within the country. You then gaze down and are surprised. Why, the cart has only three functional wheels,one is broken and the third one is already wobbling. You wonder and dont cease to be amazed at how the fellow manages to eke out trip after trip with this contraption. Then the next day, you again spot the cart on the road, but you are aghast to see that now one of the bullocks has now given way to another frail, almost dead specimen. You want to cry out aloud and chastise the driver, how much more does he think he can tinker with the cart until it finally collapses on the road, with the merchandise strewn all over.

Well, this is the precise feeling I have at this point in time. Our educational system's in spite of all its anomalies and shortcomings, despite being at the mercy of the shortsighted polity, has delivered to some extent. Atleast the few institutions that constitute our very own Ivy League. The IITs, the IIMs, the NITs, the NIDs and the rest of these creme de la creme offer every young student in our country something to aspire for, to work for. We are given to understand, that if you study hard enough, compete with the best and prove your mettle, there are places where these efforts are recognised. You dont need to count on which community you were born into, how was your breeding, how deep are your parents' pockets. The confidence that the system still works and is objective.

Yes, these opportunities should be more inclusive and should be available to the greater deprived majority. But reservation quotas are not the answer, esp when the aim is not to seek diversity in the student intake, but to correct some perceived wrongs and shortcomings in the system. Dont give alms to the beggar, enable him to earn his livelihood. Instead the focus should be on providing better access to quality education at the primary level itself to the deprived and backward communities. subsidise the education system at this level and improve the quality of education offered esp at the rural areas. Most importantly accountability needs to be ensured. If the assembly line is turning out defective parts, then first examine the feeder, not the endofline. To those who argue against subsidies in education, I say, if the govt cant even subsidise something as basic as education, it has no business collecting taxes from me.

I hope this new proposal wont pass muster and some sane less-politically motivated souls will kill it. But I guess, in the light of the booming economy and more confident janata, there wont be massive protests like we saw during the mandal commission fiasco. Thats a pity.