1st Drive

Driving is one of my passions and i just can't have enough of it. To make sure that my driving doesn't cause any discomfort to the government and also to my finances i took my driving test yesterday. It wasn't much trouble and i passed without a single mistake.

I was beaming with pride and my mind was filled with happy thoughts of me zipping through the city roads with ease at pretty high speeds and heavy metal coming through the speakers. But all these thoughts were put to rest when i took the car out for a small drive to the city yesterday itself. It seems people all across the town are on the roads and no one's home. I had gone to a few temples and to my surprise all seem to have even ignored the god's. There were hardly 20 people in the heavenly houses.

Then when i reached east fort i found where all the people have been. I wish i had a mobile with a cam and could capture people jostling for space on a 10 foot wide road and hitting each other with their elbows for space and bargaining for goods ranging from handkerchiefs to shirts and sari's on the roadsides.

When i tried to park the car near the pazhavangadi ganapathi temple i had a real tough time. A retail GIANT had opened its store( i wont' call it a store, its a mega structure) and coz of that parking was something that you couldn't do, to top it off the designated bike parking spot was taken over by a party leader and his honchos and they used the spot to have a PUBLIC meeting to which no one was giving two hoots. The guy was going on about the injustice meted out to the people by the ruling govt and the ignorance to the critical affairs of the people like flood relief and the like. Who has time to listen to all this, the only thing people will have in mind is the 30% off @ ramachandran's or the buy 2 get one free offer @ parthas or the buy a mixer, get a pan @ Ibrahims.

Now one can't blame the people for taking up consumerism to the heart. But what else to do when the shops and establishments are wooing in customers with hitherto unheard of offers and prices. We have offers for things ranging from inner wear to plasma televisions. Is this a good way to go for our economy? I say its a great way to go for our economy. But is this the way to go for our country? I disagree. We've deviated from the principles of socialism that were instilled in us by the founding fathers. We've given up the idea of Aam Aadmi as the UPA says. They've forgotten the Aadmi in their slogan and gone ahead to help develop(or exploit) our country to get more Microsoft's and IBM's to open shop here.

Now am not saying its a bad thing. Its a great thing to happen. Because of the rapidly growing IT sector thousands of engineers and graduates like me are getting jobs and much better salaries than our seniors got as freshers 2-3 years ago! I feel great that an engineer is paid a salary 1/2 that of a guy with same qualification gets in th US. But its better than getting nothing and sitting @ home sending in applications to the PSC tests and waiting for the red tape to cut through you until you've nothing else to do but go for a job for which your hefty degree wasn't of any use.

Now we hear about IIMites giving up 7 figure salaries and going to start NGO's and their own ventures. For this reason i feel the move from the govt to start more IIT's n IIM's is in the right direction. Just hope that their's something left of humanity in the scores of graduates coming outta the elite institutes and colleges.

With this hope i leave the rest to thee, dear god!