Author: manuscrypts

  • Deserving vs Reserving

    In movie halls, flights and trains, restaurants etc, there are those who are fighting for space at the last minute, and there are those who calmly walk in and take their seats… the latter deserve to do so, because they had the foresight to reserve the space .. the point to note here is that both sets of people started out on square one, some before the other, and that made the difference.. and so everything is fair.. now, if someone in the late entry set got in by just knowing the right people, thats perhaps unfair…
    and so, if we apply the same scope for reservations in the educational/ job system,. everything would be fair if everyone started from square one.. but that isnt the case, and so it makes sense to reserve places to level the scales… but what if, over a period of time, the reservations have done their job and further addition would start tipping the scale against those who normally occupied square one.. thats exactly what is happening… and that perhaps is unfair, because the regular folks havent gotten there by unfair means…
    and so perhaps it would be a good time to go back to square one, examine it and define it properly so that reservation is done only for people who are eligible even after multiple filters are put in, and since i am no expert, i can think only of socio-economic conditions as the key parameter… there have been too many changes these past few years for caste to be made a criterion.. a case in example would be that the erstwhile ‘upper castes’ in kerala are in a much poorer condition than the so called ‘lower castes’…
    it is absolutely fair that a person should not miss the chance of an education and a good life just because he doesnt have the finance for it… but in the same breath, it is absolutely unfair that a person should cede his right just because he made the most of his adequate finances and worked hard…there is an argument i made quite sometime back on the subject of meritocracy… if educationis the key to a better life, then, judging people by their intelligence levels is also perhaps unfair.. for only so much of intelligence is self gained, most of it is installed without our having a say in it… and so we are back to the theory of survival of the fittest.
    until next time, who is fit to decide what is ‘fit’ ?

  • Of Missions and Missionaries

    Consider your general position in life…:) with a title like that, thought i’ll start with that statement myself before one of you smart ones decided to comment… but the statement wasnt just for the sake of it..
    what we do in life as a profession has very little to do with what we really want to do in life.. having said that, we are part of a timeframe when this is being realised, and more and more people are setting out to do their own thing… but different things like finance, peer pressure and the sheer lethargy of moving out of a comfort zone prevents the majority from starting all over again…which is where we come to the subject of people who walk a path that they have voluntarily seeked out… missionaries so to speak.. not just those of religion, but with various other purposes like saving the narmada or setting up old age homes… does their single mindedness ever fade, do they ever begin to doubt the cause? or is their faith so strong that they go through their life without questioning the purpose at all? maybe, just maybe, its perhaps better not to have too many options…
    i have always believed that to every life there is a reason.. every person is here to do something that wouldnt have happened without him.. he is a link – big or small, in a chain of events that when seen it totality, makes a profound impact… pravin mahajan is a case in example.. by himself he might have been a nothing… but by his action, he has altered the course of a national party, and perhaps the nation itself..each of us is a case in example, some of us realise our action and its effects, and some of us will be left wondering at the end of it all, what difference did we make?
    until next time, a different position, a different life 🙂

  • What ya?!

    Thats my sister’s lingo :), and i bet if she knew Ms Vishwanathan, she would have said exactly that ‘What ya Kaavya?!’…. but yes, $500,000 is a lot of money… and while the blog community can make jokes on ‘How Kaavya Vishwanathan got rich, got famous and got ruined’, and we can all pontificate on the evils of plagiarism, we should maybe spare a thought on how a 19 year old’s mind works.. coz we have all been there, and its most definitely a different world indeed…
    For once, ToI (last Sunday) has done a good job in a purely journalistic sense, and given the story a coverage from different angles.. it acknowledges that a person of the calibre of amitav ghosh (who was her faculty in Harvard) feels that Kaavya did have a lot of talent, and the fact that everyone from william Shakespeare downwards have been doing a lil bit of copy paste job here and there.. and also the fact that the editor of both the authors (the one who copied and the one who was copied from) is a common factor…
    not that i am supporting plagiarism, but like the saying goes, its a crime only if you get caught…unfortunately Opal Mehta got a bit too famous and therefore ran a higher risk of getting caught..and Kaavya and the 40 thieved passages from one book and more from another book did get caught.. the world has changed since Shakespeare’s time, and information is too easily available for something of this sort to go unnoticed…Hopefully, she will get a life after this, and can pick up enough of the broken pieces to start afresh… for its a huge burden to carry, and theres still a long way to go…
    until next time, such is the prize of fame and the price of fame…

  • The price of fear

    1989… Rs.15… Bees Saal Baad
    2006… Rs.170… Darna Zaroori Hain

    until next time, there’s a reason to be afraid

  • Ash’s to ashes

    and dust to dust.. thats how ash’s relationships seem to be going…. and the latest reason sounds like the title song of Aamir’s mutiny movie… funny that both the relationship and the movie sank without a trace… nope, it isnt a connection for the sake of a pun…:)
    wonder how many of you remember ‘Hi, I am Sanjana’.. that was the first time i remember Ash on Tv… it was a much awaited ad from pepsi, featuring the nation’s then chocolate hero, Aamir Khan and a relatively less known Ash.. and thats around the time i convinced a certain ‘Cool Drinks’ shop owner that the pepsi poster featuring Ash would look much better on my wall than in his store… and then came the beauty contests, and the movies, and Ash went from looking hot in cold drink ads to looking cold even in hot scenes.. cant actually think of any exact time when the transformation happened, but yes, do remember the huge black and white poster bought in Chennai to celebrate the 12th Board results, for a princely sum of Rs.50 🙂
    There have been many men in her life after that 😉 – Salman Khan, Vivek Oberoi, with the latest being Bachchan’s bachcha… and while Ash has been wearing whole range of hats from a modelto a Miss World to a Bollywood Diva, i have completed a hat trick too, a hattrick, for April 29 marks the end of the third year of blogging…
    until next time, for a mistress of spices, variety can only be another spice in life 🙂