Fine 4 parking.

It happened today and still cant get over it....what hit me and i still remained cool and calm.Surprise surprise!!.It's my regular duty to pick up my second son every evening..sometimes at 4.30 and occasionally at 7.15 as it was today.As I approached my parental home situated on Monkey stand new road I saw that a car was parked right across my gate but on the opposite side of the narrow road,occupying almost a third of the breadth of the road.I was in 2 minds whether to park at the gate or not.Fully aware that i was not at fault and that it takes just a minute or two for me to get my son and drive off I decided to park well within,my father had the insight to make the gate at least 2mtrs inside the actual boundary wall line,i used this space to the maximum.As i got out of the car i assessed that there was enough space for big cars and LCVs to pass.I went in and found guests in my ancestral home and enquired if they had parked across the road,the answer was negative.My mother who was waving good bye to my son told that it was the visitors at the neighbor's who had parked that car.Wondering why someone would park across our gate and not theirs, i was pissed off at their stupidity or arrogance , that's when i heard a jeep honk and someone waving at me,I noticed it was a traffic police jeep as i ran towards the gate to make way i heard the constable say that the SI wants to speak to me.Yes Sir I said as i peeped into the dingy interiors of the jeep and heard a feminine voice ,'Yes madam i am just leaving......She interrupted me to ask if common sense had betrayed me to have double parked.I tried to explain that it was the other car that was occupying the road and my car was well within the space left for parking.No way would she listen.I tried to tell her that it was just for a few seconds and i was about to leave,but it was on deaf ears.Produce your documents she said,causing more inconvenience to vehicles behind.By that time the constables had traced the owner of the other vehicle and sheepishly she came,well aware of what a problem she had created.As my papers were in order the SI said that i will have to pay spot fine,i did with pleasure rather than be part of a tamasha in front of my house where i grew up.I could see my mother ,brother and my cousin all pump their hands in air trying to tell me that injustice was done.I didn't bother to look back if that driver of the other car who had actually violated traffic rules would be fined or not and drove off with my son who was joyfully unaware of all the drama.As i drove i had a amazing feeling...my heart was not thumping,I was cool and never felt agitated.In situations like these normally i loose my cool very fast but here i was cool as a cucumber with the fine receipt in hand not even cursing the actual law breaker,in my 20 years of driving ,never have i violated traffic rules nor have i been booked and here i was  paying fine for no fault of mine .They say hunger makes a man angry but was i hungry...the last drop of water and a morsel of food i had was before 7 AM as i have been doing for the past 20 days and the next glass of liquid and bite of meal was due past 7.30 PM.I was not hungry or  had i forgotten to recognize it,thinking about the millions who go to bed starving ....reached home to tell my wife about the incidence.The reaction was on expected lines ...abuse of the system,cursing of the law and 'why did you pay the fine'look.I just smiled and asked her if my dinner was ready.Yes i am fasting from dawn to dusk from the beginning of this month....am not pulling a 'fast' one.Will blog about it soon.

Hazaron Khwaishein...

So the man has taken a sip from the cup of life...no not Dhoni from the world cup but Anna. Hazare finally broke his fast after nearly 4 days.Is it over.Really.Havn't we seen this before at different places different times different reasons.A nameless mother fasting in front of a police post to get her innocent son released or a pensioner on dharna because he has not got his pension for the last several years...it goes on and on.But these nameless persons dont hold the nation for ransom.Am i suggesting that Hazare did that...may be yes! may be no!.Without taking away anything from the fact that Anna is a very humble social activist whose fight is no less than Gandhi's fight for social justice,did this spectacle help.Yes it did .All over India there were supporting groups who voiced their vote to boot out corruption .But look at the people who joined the bandwagon...celebreties from the film and fashion world,Industrialists,babas,Swamis (excludes swamibloganand) what were they seeking...something worth its weight in gold- "publicity".It was quite nauseating to see a picture of Ramdev baba and choreographer Farah greeting each other in the shadows of Hazare as if they met in a mela!.The media circus has to be there too.Hazare could have done the same sitting at home, with a daily press release from his followers and kept the media out, then he would have realized who among the celebrated persons truly supported him.Let me not belittle some of the famous personalities like Kiran Bedi,Shabana Azmi who have always been vocal in fighting all forms of social injustice.And some celebs who use media like twitter to express their views,but most of them who were at Jantar Mantar wouldn't have any idea of what is Lokpal bill.In all this tamasha we have conveniently forgotten that we are a parliamentary democracy,we have a solid constitution,active judiciary and a system which has a built in mechanism to deal with anything including corruption...its only the lack of will that needs to be corrected.Media needs to be powerful but there should not be trial by media.Judiciary activism is welcome but there should not be any dictation to the Govt.on all matters,for that we have elected members to do the job.So do individuals,Institutions or groups hold a nation or a govt to ransom,does it amount to blackmail?.Is Mr.Hazare right in dictating to the govt.as to who should head the body or be its members,don't we have a constitutional mechanism for that.Will it not some day encourage someone to do the same to get a bill of his or hers liking to be passed...like say 'Ban all animal slaughter bill'.
Hazare too has used the electronic media to get his views across the nation.... effectively! or is it the media which used him.Why are we ,more than a billion common Indians so gullible and lemming like.Why don't we go to vote or rather 'vote out' useless parliamentarians.Why do we expect a Gandhian to do it for us always.Democracy is a mass movement in itself.We are all part of it.Those of us who have not yet joined it by not voting during elections are to be blamed for all the ills today.Hazare or no Hazare its our birth right to elect a suitable candidate to repersent us,if he or she fails, recall them.Total Recall.Let us all protest by fasting for one whole day,say on 15th of August or 2nd of Oct.Let it be a nation wide protest fast, voluntarily by 1.2 billion Indians.Lets see how it impacts us,if it does not change the Govt.attitude towards corruption atleast it will change ours.

They did it too....

Its over..the cup is with us ,doesnt matter if its with the team or BCCI or the customs- its still with us.What a dream run for the team,for the fans and for the little master-blaster.In the euphoria that followed there was a beautiful quote from Virat Kohli "..... sachin has carried the burden of Indian cricket for 21 years now its time for us to carry him on our shoulders...",this was in response to a querry by the anchor who asked how he felt on carrying Tendulkar on his shoulder around the grounds.That sums it all up...this CUP was for the little master.Rewind back to '83 june Lords England .Kapil's Devils as the then Indian team was called later produced a miracle....(yes MIRACLE dear ICC President Pawar,Dhoni's devils were strong contenders for the cup and they deserved  to win it ,so don't call this a miracle, but 1983 was!).The West Indian team was the team to beat then, and India did, not once but twice in the Prudential cup- as the World cup was called then. But the one thing that I still think of the 1983 World Cup is the unbeaten175 by Kapil Dev,I could only read it in the news papers.Mangalore had no TV then and with India tottering at 17 for loss of five wickets I had better things to do than listen to the commentary on AIR.The opponents were Zimbabwe and am sure i dint hear the word minnows then.If there is a recording of this historic innings by Kapil,it would be watched more times than the 175 scored by Sehwag in this World Cup.Those were the days when there was no Power Plays I guess and the teams slogged for 60 overs but scored usually around 200 take or leave 50 runs.Then we had Gavaskar going on to later become, arguably the first cricket millionaire now probably every team member is a millionaire couple of times over,some even billionaires.Now every one of the 1.2 billion of us Indians is a cricket expert with ready advise and some would even get cheap publicity by threatening,Yes threatening to  strip naked for an Indian win.Those days especially in England streakers would actually run over the grounds without a prior notice(oh! how I wish we had TV then).The team then got a rousing reception in all major cities of India,the present team takes a bus ride from Taj to Raj bhavan in Mumbai and then starts preparation for some more cricketing millions.Kapil Dev,Mohinder Amarnath,Kirti Asad,Roger Binny,Sunil Gavaskar,Syed Kirmani,Madan Lal,Sandeep Patil,Balwinder Sandhu,Yashpal Sharma,Ravi Shastri,Krishnamachari Srikkanth,Sunil Valson,Duleep Vengsarkar these were the men who made the Nation proud,these were the men who sowed the seeds of cricket in minds of every 'aam admi'who now helps the BCCI and ICC rake in billions and how many seats does he get...just 4000 tickets for the common man at the 2011 WC finals.
This win is no doubt very hard earned,well fought for and rightly deserved for Dhoni's Johnnys...it was not a miracle but the 1983 win by Kapils Devils was...miracles favours the brave.So I remember with nostalgia the 1983 win as 'The Win" of Indian cricket ever,2011 is a welcome sequel...Hope we repeat it often!

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