Yet another strike!

Yesterday witnessed another bunch of strikes - by airport , bank employees and in Bangalore the auto-drivers again applied brakes to their vehicles claiming various demands.
Are strikes right for the country? Is it a public-sector employee's right to stop work for one or more days?
Take the case of autos - though it is not a public sector, the drivers get subsidies and benefits because of their occupation! Who pays the monies for these welfare benefits - of course, tax payers like you & me! And what do I get in return ?
Almost 90% of auto-drivers simply refuse to ply to commercial areas in the morning and residential areas in the evenings! The reason said is that they might not find commuters for return journey! The only way to fit into this timetable is by sleeping at homes during daytime and goto work in the evenings! Auto-imposed shift system !
Unfortunately, yesterday I had a chain of bad experiences commuting across Bangalore. In the morning, when I took an auto towards AnilKumble circle, the driver took me Shoolay circle inspite of telling him throughout the way that my destination is in the other direction. Add one-way roads and traffic blocks - result is that I paid twice the usual fare and kept my cool.
In the evening, I had to hurry to pick up some documents from MG Road. I waited almost half an hour near the Airport(old) flyover before finding an empty auto. As expected, he refused to come in that direction. Few other drivers followed suit and some demanded exorbitant fares - more than thrice the amount, reason being the strike ! But, do they need a reason anyway?
After a while, I lost my patience and started walking with the heavy laptop and bag. Whichever auto driver met me on the way, demanded a lottery prize. When I cautioned one of them of complaining to police, he asked me if he should take me to the police station for 50 bucks!
Nexus between auto & police - would have been my title if I were a journalist! It is all out in the open for everyone to see that autodrivers can't be so demanding or cheating on meters if and only if our cops were straight!
BTW, the strike by autos was to provide better housing options and a lenient policing system - it seems! Amen!
If only we do our duties well, our rights will get their way!

Bird's nest

Let me clarify that this post is not about Beijing's beautiful and mammoth stadium. Its a ramble about one's house!

Read in today's Times Of India that the area around Ranganathittu has been flooded as water has been released from the KRS dam. Having visited the birds only weeks ago, I was wondering what those birds will be doing. It seems to be funny that most nests donot have a roof! How will then they protect themselves from nature's different forces?

Well, its surprising to know that birds build nests mainly to place their eggs and to bring-up their off springs. It doesn't mean that they donot want to protect themselves or their kids to become wet in rains or blown away by gusty winds. Also, different species build nests of different types, shapes, sizes and on varied places like rocks, trees, sand, bushes, concrete structures, etc etc. Some birds donot spend their energies to build nests - they make use of others nests or simply live without homes - the common ones being pigeons who find a relatively safe place to deposit their eggs and wait for them to be hatched. Only the offspring learns to fly, the mother and baby leave their make-shift home.

Humankind is no different - we prefer different types, styles of houses. The human civilization made a giant leap forward when settlements started and people built a roof above their heads and stopped being nomads. But the basic needs might have been to seek protection from the forces of nature and enemies. We have progressed beyond boundaries from there. Before long time ago, buildings and land got transformed into real estate and today, it is one of the prime reasons for recession! Unlike birds, we have to pay rentals to make use of some body's house, unfortunately :-(

But the basic difference is that we want a home where we belong to and part of our sharing, caring and serves as one's own kingdom! The problem starts when this passion turns into possession and money becomes the foundation of the building called house!

Refer my earlier post on owning a house @ http://laddoo-thinks.blogspot.com/2006/12/buying-home.html

Festive rush in trains

Its not only common knowledge, but also a very important tip that one can reserve tickets in trains, 90 days in advance. Its a boon because one can ensure availaibility earlier and plan the other aspects of the trip in advance, especially if it is a holiday or sight-seeing. Come festivals, which are plenty in our country, the trains are the first indicators even before the HR departments get ready with their planning.
I have been experiencing this with the major festivals like Diwali, Ganesh Chaturthi, Durga Pooja, x-mas or long weekends around Gandhi Jayanti, Independence or Republic days. During the past decades, the rarity of seats in public transport has only gone up by several notches. I'm sure the number of trains or seats have gone up in this period, but this number seems to have been beaten up by the number of citizens willing to take up journeys around these holidays.
My recent example is attempting a booking for Diwali, this year which falls on 27th Oct. Much in advance, my family had calculated the booking time and kept reminding me to book them on the opening day to avoid inconvenience or hassles with the public and private road transport folks. I too promptly made use of technology and kept enough reminders in Microsoft Outlook, mobile and post-its on the wall. The D-day being Saturday when I tended to extend my cosy sleep, I woke up to the alarms and reminders. It was 7.45 am and I had good 15 minutes to brush and switch on the computer. I logged into the IRCTC website by 7.55 and checked the availability for the Friday before Diwali for a train from Bangalore to Tuticorin. In 2nd AC, there were 17 seats available and that a message was displayed that it cannot be booked before 8 am. The site was behaving properly - all fair and good. Waited impatiently for the next five minutes without doing anything, lest I should use-up bandwidth. When the system clocked 8:00, I pressed the button 'Book ticket'. Well, nothing happened for 2-3 minutes which seemed like hours. I was visualising the various booking counters with mad rush of people who might have waited for hours in long queues and brokers who might be bulldozing their way through. But the website was relaxed and reluctant before the next page came up where I hurriedly entered the name of passengers, choice and id proof details and pressed the 'Make payment' button. This button was no less than the previous one and took its time to display the bank gateway where I filled the login id, password, transaction password, agreement with Terms &Conditions and pressed the button 'Confirm payment'. A message that the payment could not be done was displayed from the bank's site after what seemed to be another hour to me. I checked the time and it was 8:05. Cursing the bank and its infrastructure, I checked the availability of tickets which came out as WL15. I proceeded to 3rd AC which was also in WL and for sleeper class, it was WL200/Regret and it was 8:14 by then.
It was unbelievable, but imagined so many frantic guys in front of laptops and counters who might have got the 17+34+200 seats (it might be more) in that train and hundreds of them like me who got disappointed by the nick of time.
Forget inflation or fear of terror attacks - we want to celebrate our festivals with friends and family, our long weekends in beautiful hill stations or beaches.
Till the country gears up to handle these small pleasures of its citizens, we will continue to remain as a developing nation.