Degree matters?

          Well, being an  Indian you are always drilled down the importance of education. Atleast in my generation, we didnot have reality shows where we danced and sang, it was all about marks! You would have thought with so many alternate careers where people are successful, it wouldn't matter about the degree.But the Smriti Irani case of 12th pass has started a debate on importance of education.People compared with ex PM that even with a Phd he couldn't get anything done.Let's atleast give her a chance !!Then started the rounds of famous people who dropped out of completing their degrees(ofcourse , nobody considered that dropping out of Harvard and Princeton is not same as Ignou).Now, i am not telling degree matters or doesn't matter.Education is always going to remain something important, anywhere in the world unless you are a famous painter :).
        Today our society is driven by a pretentious lifestyle.Parents constantly run around to get their child admitted to the most famous school.Then later ofcourse a good college matters.But does it really matter about the best location/building/cool uniform?No, my father always said its about value system rather than the most expensive school.I agree with him here, a bad mannered child in the best school is of no use.Anyways, i am now diverting from the topic and going in preachy mode again!
       I have met some people who leave an impact on your life despite being not really educated.One is a punctual cab driver who considered his job as god.Another is honest housekeeping staffer who returned my gold ring found in washroom.A random person who donated bone marrow to unknown child.There are people all around us who make a difference without really having any so called degrees!Maybe we need to give Smrithi a chance?
      I have many friends from Andhra where a culture of "value for degree" is prevalent in arranged marriage.My colleague was setting himself up in the matrimonial mart.It was taking a long time despite his good paying job in an IT company.The reason as per him was that , he just had a B.sc and not a B.tech.Now he was doing a correspondence M.sc in Maths , the reason being just to increase his saleability in marriage mart.It was unusual thing as his M.sc won't add anything to his job etc..I knew a girl who did a double MA in something, she was much sought after , but i also remember her inability to spell the place she came from, in English!And one supposed MA was in English!Makes one wonder the usefulness of these degrees...Did she buy them?
    I know for sure that degree might be this building block of career or personality, but you cannot define a person based on that degree.One friend of mine met a guy for coffee after her mom asked to meet him.He was from IIM, but had such bad manners that he got his coffee and didnot even ask the girl and paid for his coffee( you can't mumble women empowerment here, its plain bad manners, my male readers will still want to debate on this) .Anyways, education matters or doesn't matter is not debatable as it will always remain important.Its just that people without degrees are not some morons, they infact might have a fresh approach to solve a problem.
    In the west where there is less divide of white and blue collar jobs, a degree mightnot define someone, but still does matter.I think in case of Smrithi, we have to give her a chance as seems like a fighter and will lead a team of probably these so called degree holders.I would like to end by saying that degree matters, but doesn't define a person.A person cannot be judged by his degree.

Right to complain!

   Yesterday was just another day at office.I reached early had meetings, made excel sheets :(, then me and another friend decided to go to the nearby mall for shopping.I did not take the cab drop provided by office and went with her.She is a new driver ,so was cautious and safe driver.We reached the mall, did some footwear shopping, drank some coffee and came out of the parking. As we were exiting the gate and trying the U turn in the front a auto zoomed past us and slightly touched the side of car, and the car touched the auto bumper.It was such minor touch that there was barely any scratch.Since we were doing a U-turn, my friend didn't stop and continued to drive.Now the auto guy jumps out and tries to stop us by flapping his arms and standing in front of the car.So, my friend didn't stop immediately but stopped after sometime.Now a lady comes out of thin air from the opposite direction and starts screaming at us.
    This was strange as there was barely any accident, and we stopped and unknown crowd starts debating over something they didn't witness.Now the auto driver asks us to get out, we didn't as the standby crowd looked passive and rest of them looked like violent(including the lady).Now the auto guy hit the windshield and it cracked! Now is when we started to get angry and fed up.Some more passerby stood to watch and some more started to scream along with auto guy and the lady.Now the equation becomes interesting when a drunk joins in the fight.I was even talking in kannada to show them that i am a local.The car by the way had a Delhi number plate.After sometime it was tough to understand who was screaming what and my friend now started to lose her cool .I was still trying to reason in Kannada, but nothing was happening.Now, they asked us to come out of the car and the lady tried to take the car keys from window.My friend immediately closed the window.The drunk guy kept telling lower your window or i will break it like a chant.I got pissed of and asked him to tell us what is his problem and we can hear him from the closed window.He even tried to get in the back seat to "discuss".Now some passerby's also got in the discussion and just started to randomly talk crap.At this point of time i called "100".Yes, it was the first time i dialed it.Amazingly it connected and lady at the other end responded well.I described the crowd harassment and asked to send someone asap.
     Crowd started getting aggressive, mainly the lady and the drunk.Nobody realized that the auto guy had been absconding from sometime.But the tendency to follow the crowd made people continue to scream and shout.I took some pics from my mobile in case they ran away when police came.The people even told involving police will be very bad and cause problem to us.We didn't care at this point and drunk continued to trying to get in the back seat.I redialed 100 and asked to send someone urgently.Meanwhile the lady got angry when i took her photo, she tried taking ours!!
    Thankfully the police arrived shortly and asked us what has happened, we tried to be coherent and explain.But the pressure and crowd doesn't help one in being coherent.One inspector got in the back seat of the car and asked us to drive to the police station and we did!Meanwhile they took the 3 guys in the police van as well.We reached , my friend parked.I have to admire her driving skills , that being a new driver and all and in such a situation she could park on the skewed footpath the inspector indicated.(Maybe he was testing us :P) .Now we get and they take us to the main inspector or whoever it was.I took control of describing as i know Kannada. I tried explaining and telling everything truthfully.Also, the crowds role in causing nuisance for no reason.I had to tell the threats given by the drunk.Now it was the guys turn, police guy asked same question to everyone.Do you know the auto guy,is it your auto? The guys replies dug their graves, most replies were i was passing by , saw the crowd and blah blah.At this point the police realized that it was unprovoked attack on us and hit the guys with police lathi as one was even showing extra attitude.I can't see violence so had to turn my head.One guy said he thinks the auto overturned and 3 people fell down and couldn't even get up.I laughed uproariously.We just logged a complaint against those people for harassment and hopefully they learnt a lesson to not trouble anyone without knowing facts .We left after that.Few things i pondered over after the incident.
- Never fear if you are not in the wrong.
- Police is not always bad and they are there to help us.
- Be conscious of personal safety and try to be reasonable, losing cool /name calling won't get us anywhere.
- Never underestimate the power of common woman ;)
- Last but not the least "Dialing 100 works!!"

Wave of change

  I am sure there are already thousands of blogs and articles on Modi wave and his party's phenomenal win.With inflation all time high and  corruption on a roll, the country was in apathetic mode and there was a shift in people's thought process.Many of my friends moved abroad for "earning money and saving money".So, this further hampered the country's growth.No, i donot mean moving abroad is wrong ,with the globalization and all, its a done thing.But moving solely because you are fed up of your country is not something contemplate-able .
   Hopefully Modi will live upto his words and do something for the nation.All those speeches had been inspiring, we have to hand it down to his PR team for making him look like a hero.They come up with catchy slogans which had become instant hits.The self destructive mode the opposition leaders had been, it was expected that their popularity will go down exponentially. But, nobody expected such a huge loss for congress.It came a quite a shock to many of them,  am sure BJP never expected to come a sole winning party.But atleast this will give them a better chance to come up with reforms, as they won't have threats of other party taking their support back.The social media is abuzz with jokes,tweets , comments.The common man today feels quite empowered and has a voice. Atleast he has a hope of being heard, even if it is his friends.
     I myself sometimes felt fed up of living in India in the past.The traffic , the corruption, the slowness ,wait and competition sometimes made me think,  should i move abroad a couple of years to live a tension free life!I consider myself quite a patriot but when i felt tempted when offered to move abroad , i was shocked.Oh yeah,you might think family and culture and blah blah is what makes India.I do agree with all that, but the intrusive lifestyle we live is not really conductive to peace of mind.I have lived for a month each in Japan and Australia.I felt quite free and enjoyed my stay there, but by the end of my stay i always looked forward to coming back home.I often wondered, ofcourse its happiness personified to reunite with family, but country? When a foreigner in Australia told me, after a month of no pollution and traffic here, you will feel odd when back in India! I did ofcourse deny owing to my short stay, but my transition to traffic and pollution was instant when i came back.
   I hope the moving abroad is something which will happen for knowledge exchange and not really due to individuals getting fed up of India.I do quite often crib about things in India, but i still feel my heart beat increasing and a adrenaline rush when listening to jana gana mana or when around India gate.I am not unique in feeling this, i suppose most people feel that.But is the feeling for country enough? Am i responsible citizen?I have trying to do something for my country, but is it enough, probably remotely not!Maybe expecting Modi to wave his magical wand should not be our expectation, we should also behave responsibly.With that i end this with hope for change.

Fellow bloggers

       Sometimes I come across some interesting blogs randomly and i can't seem to get enough of reading it.I found a blog of a south Indian girl brought up in Delhi.It was interesting as i am north Indian born into typical north Indian family who is brought up in Bangalore.I sometimes can't identify with South or North. Some customs in South seem strange, and some north customs and mannerisms baffle me.Reading blogs of people with similar problems make me think , i am not alone in this sea of confusion.
   This blog was particularly interesting as it was a very women centric , i have been raising my voice for women and been an active blogger or commentator on blogs regarding these issues.I mightn't have filled my blog with these issues , but they very much come to my mind.I also have real friends who steer me to real world if i start turning superficial and fluffy. I like people who speak up and don't back bite or crib behind my back.Also these blogs sometimes act as catalyst to bring me back to real world.We all turn sour with social issues, they mightnot be something people discuss constantly.But the power of social media is such that now i can interact with someone sitting remotely in some part of the world.With this note i must end this post here.