Intelligentle

India, behind its colorful veil of spirituality, scenic beauty and serene charm, has a darker shade of sadness. It pathetically fails to protect its future, the children. The data from National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) paints a rather disappointing picture with only a few states such as Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and New Delhi showing a positive deviation from the national average. While the national average of Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) stands at 40 (per 1000 live births), Madhya Pradesh and Assam fails to save 54  lives as of 2013. Kerala with its renowned, now declining, Kerala model of health care has an infant mortality rate of 12. This aforementioned numbers proves that with political will power, governance and personal health awareness we surely can save more lives every year. Even though we cite Kerala as an exception in this scenario there are states such as Punjab making good progress in this regard. These are the...

I am not a big fan of day-specific status updates or messages nowadays. However, I think this is a right opportunity to mull over the deeper connotations of independence and freedom. As a person who does not have any strong political inclination, I find it very difficult to express myself without being abused and being called anti-national. To be very honest, it HURTS. It is tough to explain your love for the country while a larger population believes that patriotism is blindly supporting a certain political party or its leader, building a temple, mosque or church somewhere or branding an entire population as traitors just because you do not have a strong hold there. While I personally believe that love for the mankind is the key factor that should keep us moving forward, let me make it clear, I do not entirely reject the notion of patriotism. You show your patriotism when you put an effort for the upliftment of the larger society you live in, it is when you pay taxes and hope...

"We are not giving you a new car, we are merely servicing it", was the response of one of those sincere service engineers when I pointed out the humongous service cost I had to incur after the last scheduled service. Besides questioning your intellect with such naive statements, they are also used to face the customer with any regret after doing a bad job. To put things in perspective, I shall provide a rough calculation of the maintenance cost incurred for my  Chevrolet Beat Diesel LS from the second year service: Year 2 service: 12000+ INR: T his includes a PCV valve replacement which was not included in the actual service manual. They told that they can alter the service manual without informing customers. Year 2.5 service: 6500 INR.  After one week of this service, a spring near/connected to the clutch was broken costing around 500 INR and I had to leave the vehicle for a day, causing me great inconvenience,  Both the front brakes jammed for no ap...

Its been a while, and if I am being completely honest with myself, its been quite a while. Oh, I have a valid excuse. I was busy trying to be a better person, so I could not write for almost a year. What?! Did I say a year? 12 months? 365 days? Well, almost that. So, am I a better person now? No, I don't think so. I am still trying to be one, though. However, I am happy that I was busy catching up with life. I learnt that the best way to be a better person, a better husband, a better dad or a better anyone is to be honest, more with yourself than with others. Digressing a bit, as many of you, I'm also a big fan of 'Joker' played by Heath Ledger. While catching up with the human being that I am, I realized that I am missing a bit of 'villanism' in me, the 'message sending' kinds is what I am talking about. I am in the mushy zone more of the time than in the 'tough'y zone,  Hey, that could be a problem for an aspiring villain, right?...

That's the problem with time, it's never enough. And you see, I have not written a blog post in the last 5 months, no kidding LAST. FIVE. MONTHS! In 2012 I wrote 25 blog posts, 2013 it was four and going by the trends, this year is no different. I started this blog to share my experiences and views, and also to enhance my writing skills. To be honest, I am not sure what happened over the last three year, but 24 hours were good enough for me. Now that I need to keep it going, both because of personal and professional reasons. I need to manage time in a better manner, I need to be a role model for my kid and above all, I need to chase my dreams with renewed spirit. Let this be a start, I shall be back with more interesting and refreshing thoughts. Hasta la vista.

I would not call 2013 eventful except that it ended with a big happiness. Otherwise, it was as normal as it could be. I don't mean to say that normal is bad, sometimes you just wish that you have a normal day, don't you? For me, normal is good, unless it's making me complacent. Learning was one of the better parts of 2013. As I say goodbye to my 20s, I'm realizing that I need many tweaks. Last year, I came across people who are genuinely concerned about this planet and its inhabitants. On the other hand, I also had to tolerate people who seriously take civility, and humanity, in general, for granted.  So 2013 was good to me, however somehow I feel that I have not done justice to myself during the year. During the next 365 days I will make every effort to make up for this. First and foremost, I will go after my dreams with renewed spirit Will finish everything that I start with better pace and precision Will try and be more compassionate about human relation...