Where should Jamal go now?

The question comes straight from "Jhopri Ke Crorepati Kutte", yah that’s exactly what it means when we hear "Slumdog Millionaire". My apologies if you find "Jhopri Ke Crorepati Kutte" little offending, I must tell you I do not take any pleasure by translating in derogatory manner. But that is what Mr. Danny Boyle has really meant through his movie. And that’s what they are. Some of us may reason and prove that in resurgent India it is no more the case. Let’s try to answer this question honestly - Is that really true? We know it is NOT. What Mr. Danny Boyle has shown is really a slap on the face of "resurgent" India and I felt it on my face sitting in PVR air-conditioned theater. Thank you Mr. Danny Boyle for what you have shown when Jamal lost his mother and police was just a silent spectator or when Surdases were getting mass-produced for our traffic signals or when Jamal takes a holy dip for seeing Amitabh Bacchan.

I left the theater with a mixed feeling - happiness of seeing young Jamal getting his lady love back and heaviness of realizing kid Jamal lost his mom, his childhood and probably everything. One question that I was not able to answer - where should all such kid Jamals go when they lose their mom, dad and their world in the hands of rioters? Is it very wrong if some of them give the venom back to the society some time down the line? I do not have a good answer.

Finally, it was a great movie, some of the scenes are very intense without them the 'real' slum will never come out. However, what I felt missing was an equally intense story line. The character of Jamal seems to be pretty inconsistent, you don't expect a slum-dweller to turn into a urban, sophisticated individual with a very strong characteristics (forget about the look and accent etc) unless some Midas touch happens. So, 10 Oscar Nominations seem to be little too much!

Places and Cities I visited

I would use this blog-space to list the cities that I visited over past 30 plus years, I would share some of my memories while I list them down. I would put them in chronological order, the earliest being the first.

Silchar, Assam - The town where I was born and lived first twenty two years of my life, probably the best period of my life. Its approximately 10 years that I am living away from Silchar to make a living. But that does not seem to reduce my obsession with town, I still day-dream to go back and live there in 'our typical sylheti style'. Well before I get carried away any further with my emotions, let me share one of my earliest memory with town that was a moment of pride too.
October 1985, my family went out of Silchar for a South-India tour for three weeks time. During the period when we were touring Trivundrum, Kanyakumari, Madurai, Bangalore, Mysore, Tirupati, Calcutta, Silchar was devastated by one of the biggest flood for the town and the valley. We came to know about this when we were on our way back to home and wrapping up last lap of the tour in Calcutta. Along with the bad news what came as a good news was our home was out of the reach of the flood water. By the time we came back, the flooding was over. Though I was little upset with the fact that I had to miss the excitement of the great-flood. As I entered into the city on our return, I noticed a big green sedan car standing on the road side. It took me by surprise to spot such a big car in my small town and now I was convinced Silchar has moved into the group of best cities on India. As a nine year kid, this green car made me feel proud my home town. On later years, I spotted the same car many more times on the streets of Silchar, it was green Contessa Hindustan Motors car.


Gauhati, Assam - My earliest memory with this City dates back to 1985 when we were going out for the South India tour. The most amazing thing that I found was the dozens of the trains waiting on their platforms side by side one after other. I vaguely remember, I stopped for while on the overhead bridge meant for the passengers to reach their respective platforms and wondered how many different places and directions these trains were destined for. I suppose my father must have dragged me by my hand to get me out of that state of pause.

Trivundrum, Kerala - It was the same trip of 1985 when I visited the town. Only thing that I remember is people lighting their cigarettes from a slowly burning rope.

Madurai, Tamilnadu - Another place from the route of the same trip of 1985. I remember the Aftab Lodge where we stayed and the reservation that my parents had for staying in a hotel owned by a Muslim. But the room waiter did a good selling and convinced them its just the name that is Muslim otherwise it is pretty much run by Hindus. That brought the necessary comfort for my parents. In the same hotel where my younger brother who was just 5 years then, had locked us in the room from outside and vanished for some time. My mother and grand-mother had completed couple of rounds of shedding tears over losing him for ever before he could trace his route back to the hotel door and opened it up.


I would list down the rest of the cities from my list one by one in the coming days.

MBA Calendar

I did some research on some of good MBA options available for the MBA aspirants from Indian Corporate world, publishing it here. Some of you may find it useful.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pDUAXubsCYwoGA-DzJb62GQ

Does Santosh Mohan Dev deserve to win Silchar Lok Sabha Constituency?

Answer is no. You might have already started smelling a rat here. Let me assure you that’s not the case, I am not biased nor I am prejudiced. I would try to explain my point through this essay. To give you a brief idea about the person - Santosh Mohan Dev has been elected eight times as a Member of Parliament, of that seven times he has been elected from his home turf Silchar. He has held various portfolios and ministries of Govt. of India. His political affiliation is with Indian National Congress. You may like to visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santosh_Mohan_Dev for more information about him.

You might be thinking why I have picked up Mr. Dev of all Indian politicians. Well, I have a small connection and a common interest - both of us are from Silchar, Assam. In order to understand his success, we need to understand the people of Silchar. Silchar is in one of the remotest part of India. It is in the southern most part of Assam - not easily reachable by land route. It will not be exaggerated if I say Silchar would appear in the list of the most backward urban areas of India. Most of the population of this place is immigrants from the present day Bangladesh. Immigration has taken place through the decades. Probably it got started with the division of India, it got accelerated with 1971 Bangladesh liberation and followed by next two to three decades. That’s the story of majority Hindus, here the marginally minority Muslims are original sons of the soil.

People of Silchar are predominantly Sylheti, for most of the people the roots are in the Sylhet district of Bangladesh. They take lot of pride in themselves; they are good at Mathematics and English and consider themselves as intelligentsia. Every year some 10 to 20 students would make into the local Engineering College or to the Medical College or may be 1 or 2 students would come in the top ten in the 10th or 12th state examination. This further deepens their faith in the abilities of the people of Silchar. At the heights of discussions, the most intelligent one would prove the point that they are probably the most aggressive, intelligent and smart people in India and rest would say 'Aye'. Now with economic development of rest of India, every year a handful of local youths ventures out of the region to join the mainstream India in the bigger cities like New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata etc. While most of them keep struggling in the rat race of corporate competition, some of them make relatively better living. Back home most of them are heroes and again vindicates the faith and belief of their elderly generation in the supremacy of the Sylheti people.

Now, in actual, how the life looks like in Silchar? All that I stated above is possible because people hardly have any work and the most enjoyable pastime there is socio-political discussions. Average office goers hardly work more than four hours a day. Lot of people is actually jobless. The whole city is full of mom and pop shops - on each street and the corners. So, Government jobs followed by the mom & pop shops are the major bread earner for the average people. Silchar has its celebrities too i.e. their doctors or the physicians and their families. They are the high earning group people and they get their share of privilege at every step of their life. A new category of private sector white collared job is Medical Representative. Silchar has probably one of the highest density of medical shops and probably the patients too.

Now how all these and Mr. Santosh Mohan Dev gets related? Well, the answer is it is the Mr. Santosh Mohan Dev who made Silchar to retain this form for past 10, 20, 30 years and the city would remain the same probably for another half a century. Silchar is not easily accessible, till this date it is not connected through broad gauge rail lines because the project never received the blessings of Mr. Dev. He is the Central Heavy Industries Minister but Silchar never got an industry during his tenure where masses could be employed. For long time he was Steel Minister but Silchar never got any thing. Well, it’s not correct completely though - he got highly publicized jobs for handful B.E. engineers in SAIL. He was the Central Minister for Tele-Communication - digital connectivity of Silchar is still pathetic. He was the Central minister for Home Affairs - most of the local goons grew up under his blessings and they continue to grow till this date.

Another great characteristic of people of Silchar, that I forgot to mention earlier, among them they prove their supremacy by proving the point that how close he is to Rana Dev, that’s how Mr. Dev is locally known. It’s a matter of prestige that one had been to Ranada's place or to his daughter's wedding. There are whole bunch of corrupt government officials and businessmen who become millionaires just by being close associate of Mr. Santosh Mohan Dev. And they in turn further spread out the stories of power and strengths of Ranada and have their own followers. For others, these officials and businessmen are the only way to reach to Rana Dev to take special care of their vested interest.

The success of Mr. Santosh Mohan Dev is his ability to retain this fabric of the society for the decades and their lies the roots of his success. Some of you may be thinking how it is different than rest of India. Difference is there is no challenger of Mr Santhosh Mohan Dev in Silchar, every one out there is a great follower of Mr. Rana Dev.

My First Blog

Test blog. As far as my memory serves, I have not done any blogging till this point. Although I keep hearing (and at times I see them too) about blogging ever since they are there. Any way, let me see if I feel like doing some what more meaningful blogging and I would come back here.