Why do we fight?

While I try to while away time sometimes I take a run down the memory lane to good old times... times long ago to label myself as innocent, which I presume I still am J J!! During the middle school, as is the case with everyone we have some people who are close to us and we tend to be pretty possessive over them. "He/ She is my friend!! My friend alone! You go pick someone else"...  "No you are NOT part of our gang, you can't play with us"...

Do you recollect such time when we had our own small gangs, if anyone wanted to be friends with those in YOUR gang, the rest would/ you would staunchly oppose? All this usually didn't carry an impact strong enough to ruin anyone... as you would label it now in simple terms as "being kiddish". Any difference between guys would be sorted through a tough measure of dialogue involving "Dude, you tell me, you are my friend or his?"....It was all peaceful, issues sorted through dialogue, rarely did fists fly. Try remembering such instances and a smile would definitely flash across your face on such memories. You were until then unspoilt by the evils/ paradigms of the society.

Now take a step forward... a few years ahead... You still have groups/ gangs of... Let’s say people (friends may be too generic). But, only this time around those groups are defined NOT by the simple facet of who is close to you, rather it’s the parameter that defines WHO, THAT person is. Yes, these groups are defined by the affiliations of race, colour, religion, caste, creed, region etc. Time has been swept off and you have grown having strong identity or affiliation to these attributes. You have unknowingly built strong bonds with these. You recognize yourselves with these and inherently built a strong loyalty/ passion. And, when these attributes are challenged your reactions are way different that when you were a kid. You will have physical violence and aggression answering the challenge, not dialogue instead.

This is what is the difference, as we grow we are supposed to be more mature, take a wider & sensible view of the situation. But, in actual as we grow our vision is narrowed as well as blurred by the bias towards the above mentioned virtues. When our bond with virtues becomes stronger beyond a point, we defend it more vociferously and in that moment when the emotions spill over, violence takes command.

This is where we are in the current world scenario. People identify and relate themselves with WHAT they believe defines them and that is NOT good.

Instead we should try painting all ourselves with the same brush of mankind (can't find the relevant quote by a famous person)... recognize the other individual as a human replete of all the tags of religion, region, race etc., believe that we just co-exist in this world with rather virtually bordered/ separated places... maybe this will allow us to desist from spewing venom a.k.a violence, brandishing a shield against all this rather than presenting it as the sword.

Perfection….. Discipline

These two words ‘are’ sufficient to describe this country. These guys thrive on living by & perhaps even dying by these two, quite simple words …which in actual are quite difficult to be adhered to, under varying circumstances and possibly at various stages of one’s life

In manufacturing space or as is the latest trend in s/w industry too, people take pride in 6-sigma (highest standard of quality- 1 error in 1 million cycle) being implemented at the work places. There are teams entrusted with the job to actually ensure that it is followed. Now, for a change think about having such a process being implemented across not one or two locations of a company but across towns, cities, metros …actually the whole country. For such a thing to happen one can imagine the indefinite numbers of check points and SWAT sort of teams required to ensure this ‘process’ is adhered to……

But, surprisingly no such mechanism exists in this place, and still my dear friends this country has managed to pull out amazing results in 6-sigma scores—scores that might put quite a few global giants (in manufacturing space) to shame. The desire to follow a process should come from within an individual and the guys over here follow them like a ritual- being it as simple as crossing road, stopping at red light to designing their own life, prioritizing tasks at hand and still finding time to take time to do their fav past time. If asked how they do it, they might come up with the

“ofcourse I don’t look busy, ‘coz I did it right the first time”

Just imagine if this small country is able to top the charts with such a small set of ppl (population), what a country of 1 billion like minded people can do, by following the two simple words. Imagine what good use the man power could be put to if ‘citizens’ could KISS (keep it sweet & simple) things… but we always find ways to blame it on someone else.

I guess the nature too has got used to this discipline and hence one can find seasons starting and ending like clockwork each year. On a lighter sense, with more of ‘us’ coming here, the seasons too have gone for a toss…perhaps they are taking a break by following ‘our’ ways …. J

Cultural Shock !!!

Hey buddy, lets catch up over a coffee near theatre @5PM!! Ok…and the usual turning up time would be, naah ‘WILL BE’ anywhere around 5:30 n in some cases may be worse…. Unless ofcourse we have given time to a gal, one eventually turns up earlier than the discussed time!!!... gals as usual have the exception of making it late to the meet everytime ;)!!! Well I presume that back home, we strictly believe in the PHILOSOPHY that-“Punctuality is the virtue of the bored!!” …. N we usually don’t leave enuf time for oneselves to get bored to the point of becoming PUNCTUAL :)

If one has made some observations around at workplaces (centers of learning apart from professional course ;) which don’t fall under this category) those who are actually ‘ON TIME’ are those who commute by COMPANY BUS :) n seldom having n alternate (or wanting to choose one) and the rest of the rajas’, ranis’ n to forgot those maharajas’, make their gala entrance at their convenience ……

And here, they adhere to the clock as if life will cease to exist if they get delayed by a ‘moment’, so it means that the above mentioned philosophy if applicable inadvertently proves beyond doubt that these guys here are bored… bored to death!!! :)

It doesn’t mean that I am amidst zombies…. I am amidst ROBOTS :) … these guys are organized, so very organized that they could pass off as the latest A.I. achievement of Japanese - ‘Robots’….. it’s like every damn thing ranging from daily chores to office work, social gathering all n all have been programmed into their brains as if ‘god’ made some extra effort to write-in a few more line of codes in this version of humans :). Recently, one of my colleagues at workplace was enquiring if I wud be free on 3^rd Saturday of next month…. I put a dumb face at him, barely would I be able to guess what I might do this weekend or may be the next and this guy was asking about my schedule a month in advance….. later I came to know that he wanted to organize a get together n he was going around finding ‘convenient’ dates….

Everything that we can see around is planned to the precise moment, the bus timing, train arrivals, planes, meetings with people, swimming pool timing, car parking time and even the time at at which a shop closes…. Damn these guys, they close the shop even if u wanted to buy an item :( …. No wonder one wudn’t find many people at stations waiting for their bus/ train; for they know the exact minute when it would arrive…. But there is a flip side to everything and the perfection wasn’t an exception. I got to take a bus at 6:01PM & being from our placepredicted the bus might come a bit early and went to the stop 5 mins ahead of time (with my watch being 5 min fast I was actually 10 min ahead) .... on top of it these guys failed for the first time and at the wrong time….. first up, the bus came 7 mins late and the worst, I had to wait for the entire time at a bus stop without shelter and in freezing temperatures (it was around -9 deg) …… it’s entirely a different part that I was hopping, jumping, running aroung, rubbing my hands and doing all that I could to keep myself warm!!

There is nothing in this world from which we can’t learn anything…..believe in the saying-“Make every experience a worthwhile lesson” …… There are many a things that we could learn from here- punctuality.