A Bery Mury Krizmas! Hick!

Have a Christmas filled with all the wonderful things in life!

Pankaj

This unexpectedly, brought about a deluge of complaints from about half a dozen other parents present in the forum. Politics forgotten, the conversation seemed to have firmly shifted towards the kids of today and their fallacies.

But not everyone was against the ‘Kids of Today’ apparently, and one Mother spoke up quite passionately on their behalf. She revealed to what I assume was a stunned chat room ( I certainly was repelled and stunned), that her kids (11 & 15) had been sexually assaulted and deprived of food for long hours after they returned from school daily, while she left them under the care of a relative daily because she had to work 2 shifts being a single mom.

Slowly, the tide changed and people started coming out with their sordid and not so pleasant experiences as kids, with one gentleman from Florida reeling out statistics from various websites about mistreatment of children (especially the girl child) not only in the ‘third-world-countries’ like those of Asia and Africa, but also the more ‘advanced’ cultures of North America and Europe.

The conversation(s) left me quite disturbed and appalled to the core. I decided to do some investigative work myself on the WWW in spirit of Citizen Journalism (CJ) so much in vogue these days.  I checked out certain Adult/Erotic forums and UN websites. The former to checkout the hidden attitudes of  people visiting these sites and the latter to gain an insight into official worldwide statistics into the mistreatment of Children globally.

In the second endevour, I was helped out immensely by The State of the World’s Children 2009 Report by UNICEF, which basically focuses on maternal and neo-natal health and identifies the interventions and actions that must be scaled up to save the precious tiny lives.

The focus on essentials like Nutrition, Health, Education and also Child Protection are eye openers and a recommended read.

Coming to the former (Adult Forums), I essentially Googled and found about 2 dozen or so forums, each ‘specilaizing’ in a particular form of sexual debauchery and erotic arts. All of these were legal adult forums for those above 18 years of age. I decided to explore the chat rooms in some of these forums instead of wasting time browsing other pages (obviously knowing, because of the very names of these respective forums about what to expect in those pages), inorder to ‘connect’ with people thronging these chat rooms and get a true idea.

At the 11th hour I decided to assume the role of a ‘connoisseur of debauchry’ and align myself with the special sexual topic which these different forums focused on, instead of attempting to ask the people in these chat rooms directly about their sexual predilections which might get them to withdraw into a shell immediately and stop chatting.

Over a period of time and I am guessing about 20 or so chats with different people which included 4 females, I subtly tried to know if these people would think about having sexual relations with someone younger than 18 if the opportunity presented itself. Two of the gentlemen turned out to be from countries where the legal age for sexual intercourse was 16 and both said that the same was their limit.

However, to my utter disgust and shock, about 4 to 5 of the so called ‘gentlemen’  were very interested in the idea and indicated that they would surely chance it, with 3 telling me that they had actually done the deed.  The others, to my utter relief, seemed quite rightly disgusted with the idea and were quite empathetic in saying so.  But what really appalled me was the admission of a lady that she had infact had sexual relations with underage teenaged boys till about 2 years ago. This woman had the gall to say that these interactions were ‘limited’ as if that makes it all ok!

Such an admission coming from a mature and educated  lady was all the more shocking. Anyway. most of these 20 odd private conversations lasted an average of 5-12 mins because as soon as the people at the other end realised that I wasn’t really interested in anything ‘interesting’ they preferred to move on, which suited me just fine.

I had enough of this sordid research and infact at one point wondered what possessed me to explore this squalor of human nature, which, though I knew existed, still left me numb and appalled to the very core of my being.

All of this has convinced me to take a much more active part in protecting the precious childhoods of our children globally and I have begun doing so by taking part in charitable enterprises on the WWW as a beginning. The need of the hour is enpowerment of these young lives through education, proper diets, good morals and as they grow up, enough and equal opportunities for earning a living.

Anyone with greater insight into the above please feel free to comment and for those who have a game plan or want to collectively come up with one to tackle the mentioned menance(s), do contact me at pankajhrm@gmail.com.

Let me assure you that the just being part of online communities is not enough, this is a human problem in the real world and needs to be solved by us humans IN the real world.

]]> http://crazywordsmith.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/save-our-children/feed/ 0 crazywordsmith BA00846 http://crazywordsmith.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/bar-bar-lagaatar/ http://crazywordsmith.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/bar-bar-lagaatar/#comments Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:57:32 +0000 crazywordsmith http://crazywordsmith.wordpress.com/?p=137 Continue reading →]]> The ubiquitous the Bar Code is 35 and going strong. Bar Coding changed the way products and even services around the globe were designed, packaged and offered to the customer. From quality checks to billing, from tracking to identifying, Bar Coding technology has become the basic necessity as far as the execution of these processes by Global Organizations is concerned.

The Bar Code was invited by Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver on October 7, 1952, and looked more like a Bulls Eye board rather than the vertical ‘Manhattan’ stripes that it is symbolized by today.

The Current Bar Code design, which the New York Times has disected for the less Technologically inclined amongst us is thus:

For many Indians in the early eighties and nineties, anything with a Bar Code signified ‘Imported Maal’, till, in the late nineties, Indian companies (particularly the fabled Software Companies) began adopting the technology.

Well, as someone who is quite into quality and quality processes, this simple (as its bound to feel now that someone else has worked their brains to come up with it!) but (currently) indispensable technology is something I have huge respect for.

Here’s to this technology going on and on…Bar, Bar..Lagaatar!

]]> http://crazywordsmith.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/bar-bar-lagaatar/feed/ 0 crazywordsmith barcode_round Bar Code http://crazywordsmith.wordpress.com/2009/03/08/womans-day-a-salute-to-women-everywhere/ http://crazywordsmith.wordpress.com/2009/03/08/womans-day-a-salute-to-women-everywhere/#comments Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:34:51 +0000 crazywordsmith http://crazywordsmith.wordpress.com/?p=108 Continue reading →]]> I am not quite a believer in the ‘Valentines Day’, ‘Road Safety Day’ ,’ Father’s Day’ , ‘Mother’s Day’, etcetra line of thinking. It seems overtly insane to ‘celebrate’ certain things we should be thankful for and respectful of all year around, each day of our lives.  So to all the hardcore Capitalists out there ( I am a part Capitalist, part Socialist), hate to break it to you, but you can’t put a price tag to everything.

Women’s Day falls under the same category of ‘everything’ for me.  A simple 24 hour period to honor womenfolk is simply juvinlie. I am all for added recognization, but something so mammoth cannot be contained within a day.

Having said that, I salute all Women, known and unknown that inhabit our beleagured planet today.  

In my 25 years on this planet, I have met Women of some amazing skills, insights, determination, knowledge and sheer abilities.  I have never failed to be bedazzled by the depth of their emotions and the trueness of their purpose, whether educated or uneducated, whether priviliged or not, whether old or young and finally, whether in good times or in times of crisis.

I take this opportunity to thank God for the sole woman in my life right now, My Mother. A Woman of such fortitude and diginity that I always find myself thanking God that I was born her son. The sacrifices she has made along with my late Father have gone a long way in making me what I am today.  She holds an M.A in Psychology (Gold Medallist) and was a Teacher at one of North India’s finest schools before marriage. She put her career on hold to raise me and my younger brother and instilled in us the very values she has stood by all her life: Honesty, Dignity, Respect for Intellect & Time  and above all, Never Giving Up In Life.

I shall be in her debt for an eternity and this is one of those debts that we all love being in!

Finally, to all my Women friends and acquaintances, a Happy Women’s Day today and a great life forever!

Cheers!

Pankaj 

Today the 3rd of December one week after 26/11, we remember and recount the hour when humanity and every religion was marauded, raped and put to shame by some who thought they were making a selfless sacrifice for a great cause. But, I stumble upon the question, who are the real terrorists? Are they, those who do the act, or the masterminds sitting in various countries. Is it Osama or is it Bush? Is it Dawood or is it Modi?  Is it LeT or is it RSS? Is it ISI or is it MNS? Or is it each one of us?

 As I look within myself I realize how I am responsible for these acts.

 A handful of men can’t be the only one responsible for such an attack on civilization. There must have more who planned it. But why did they plan it? How did they get around all the problems? What do they want to achieve out of it? And what finally happened out of all these acts? As I set within myself to find answers, I reach the same blind alley with a mirror looking straight into my own eyes!

 Why did they plan?

Somewhere, sometime, somehow, someone must have been mistreated. People can be highly selfish and political to enrage a whole clan, but no human being can think about vengeance without even a little bit of atrocity laid against them. Many such atrocities are well documented and accepted. Be it Hitler’s gas chambers or be it the incessant drive of the mutated and disfigured sects of Christianity to baptize the whole human race. We have innumerable instances of how the so called Phony protectors of Hindu Religion tried every possible dirty means to gather more blind followers that they can rule on. And now the same thing is being witnessed as some FRAUDULENT AND FAKE Islamic guards, have set out, to not only destroy those who they think destroyed them, but also destroy and malign their own kind. But where were those other real religious men, who knew that each of these atrocities in the name of religion is so clearly shunned by the same religion that was supposedly protected? Where were the sane people when these insanities where being carried out? Its not that humanity was attacked by the perpetrators of crime, but the rest of us let them attack us. When the taxi driver was lynched in Mumbai a few kilometers from where I stay, I was responsible for not stepping out and letting the hooligans know that we the civil society object. The great teachers of our great Hindu civilization preferred to stay in their cocoons and not cry out against the atrocities infiltrated but others of their own creed. It’s me and others like me who prefer to keep quiet just saving our own skin, who are responsible for these attacks.

 How did they get around?

The gunmen who held the city at ransom could not have come in without someone from within us helping them. The people who rammed the planes into Americas bloated ego couldn’t have done so without inside help. So all these men get trained and brainwashed but at the end of the road there are some untrained and perfectly common men who open the gate to them for a price. These are these men who sell their mother, sister and daughter for what they think is small money, but I consider as their entire soul. These people are dead long before they die. But, aren’t these people a product and part of the same society that we live in. They are one of us, who come to office, crib about their boss, enjoy a glass of chilled bear and like to hang out with friends. But, why do some choose the easy way to make some quick money. We are equally responsible in their act. We who try and show off little things that we think makes us superior. We who make him feel how small he is in so many things. We who demand more out of him than he can afford. The boss and his boss and the biggest boss who bag 100 times the money for one tenth the work. People who build palace after palace, when they can live in an apartment.

 I understand that today CEOs and the Page3 creatures are coming out and joining hands to prove how hurt they are, but what I cant understand is why some entertainers charge 40 million rupees, why the Bacchans need a Rolce Royce, couple of BMWs, a Lexus, a few Mercs and what not, why Mr Ambani needs to build another Palace to stay, with seven floors for parking. These are the people who belittle the rest and then some from within us try to reach for more at any cost. Some might say that at the end it’s the person’s conscience, but I ask which conscience are you taking about, that which someone is born with or that which the society impregnates? Every morning when I drive down to work, there are so many others who hang for their lives out of the trains in Mumbai. I find myself guilty of so many crimes with this single action. Guilty of driving a car carrying one person when I can so well pick some people waiting at the bus stops. Guilty of switching on my AC, cooling the interiors and heating up the exterior. And above all I am guilty of belittling the efforts of so many others who don’t have this luxury. I am guilty of being part of the crowd who has slowly but surely poisoned somebody to let of their guard for a little money.

 I can go on how each of us has played our parts, but it will only prove how much we still debate and not put anything in action. And one such inaction which is the single largest contributor of all these attacks is our apathy towards casting our votes. We will shout and scream and accuse the politicians and the mayors about how they have failed to protect us. BUT HAVE WE EVEN CARED TO CHOOSE THEM? THIS WORLDS LARGEST DEMOCRACY SEES AN AVERAGE VOTING OF LESS THAN 40% AND THE LEAST VOTING IN THE MOST URBANIZED AREAS. WE ARE THE COWARDS WHO FIND EVERY EXCUSE NOT TO VOTE. WE ARE THE COWARDS WHO ENJOY A HOLIDAY WHEN WE SHOULD BE VOTING.

 Although we light a candle in the memory of those killed, but we are the once who actually lit their pier by our apathy, ignorance, sheer negligence and above all cowardice of not reacting when we should have. WE ARE A PART OF THAT DEMOCRACY WHERE WE KNOW ONLY OF OUR FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS BUT NOT OUR FUNDAMENTAL DUTIES.

I am one of us, a coward, a lame human (probably not human anymore) and a terrorist, who lets others do injustice to others as I remain mute spectator. I am the terrorist to have not caste my vote. And above all I am terrorist who will go back to work 10 minutes after writing this, and you will be one who forgets about this 10 minutes after reading this.

Yours sadly and shamefully,

A numb religion-less being

Cricket has become more aggressive, smarter, more taxing, infinitely richer and for a spectator like me a lot more exciting!  Over the last 10 years in particular, the game of Cricket has been decidedly more aggressive, thanks in no small measure to one individual called Steven Waugh – ex Australian player and captain. As a player he epitomised grittiness, ability to put mind over matter and as a captain he inspired superlative performances from what was once a moderately successful team. Steve Waughs’ Team Australia played hard, tough and uncompromising cricket, won convincingly and garnered the respect of it’s opponents while doing so.

Ricky Ponting’s Team Australia on the other hand, though seem to play the same brand of cricket, can and is hardly respected either on or off the field.  The members, if not behaving like outright juvenile delinquents, seem to morph into what can only be described as a bunch of rabid wild dogs, intent on victory at all costs, with complete disdain for any decorum or sensitivities. How they can savor a so called record equalling 16th Test win, which has come at the cost of reducing Cricket to a negative spectacle, is beyond me and it seems also that of most Australians.

But maybe even that’s forgivable to an extent. What’s certainly not forgivable is a charge of racism against a Team India player (Read: Harbhajan Singh)! Look who’s talking! Along with countries like Germany and to some extent France, Australia is, for all intents and purposes, a hot bed of racism related issues. Ask the South Africans, ask the Sri Lankans, ask the English and if that’s not proof enough for you….ask the Aborigines of Australia themselves !

This Australian Team is not only obnoxious but has also displayed a disturbing and unhealthy (Read: negative) propensity for intolerance of anything that even remotely is not to their liking. This means that small issues like a otherwise normal verbal duel on the field becomes a raging and unfair controversy about imagined racism and all because this intrinsically juvenile Australian side can’t take it when an opposition team gives it back to it in the same measure. Grow Up ‘MAYTE’!

As for Mr.Andrew Symonds, the main protagonist (or should I say Villain?) of the whole fiasco in Sydney, I have only one word of advice: If you are so very sensitive, maybe a career as a ballet dancer would be more to your liking!

Good bye for now Mr. Symonds (Oops was that racist?) !

An Indian Hunter ( Read: Company), a British Jaguar and an American Lord (Read: CEO & Chairman) who behaves no less than a crown prince.

Welcome to the world corporate jungle.

The quintessential British car brand Jaguar is within the reach of an equally quintessential Indian powerhouse company the Tata Group after adequate due diligence and valuation of each other by both parties involved,even as this article is being written. On the other hand the Tata Group’s attempt to initiate a dialogue with the Orient Express Luxury Hotel Chain for a strategic partnership between the chain and its famed  Taj luxury hotel chain was roundly rebuffed by the former in letter that frankly smacked of colonial if not outright racist overtones. But lets focus on the Big Mac for now, the fries can be had later…..

The Jaguar deal which comprises also of the revered Land Rover range of super tough urban ATVs, MUVs and whatever else you may like to refer to them as, is  a $2.05 Billion New Year’s gift that the Tatas hope to celebrate 2008 with. The group did celebrate 2007 with the mammoth Corus deal ($12 Billlion) which made it the world’s 5th largest steel producer not to mention one of the world’s cheapest producer of high grade steel in such huge quantities. The Corus deal was obviously mostly about volumes and reinforcement of Tata Steel’s expertise and image in the highly competitive global steel industry, the Jaguar deal on the other hand is all about building up its luxury and premium brands portfolio and profile across the world. Ford has been constantly losing money on the iconic Jaguar, which all those with deep pockets, penchant for style or outright James Bondish ambitions consider it an absolute must in their not so modest garages which also host the Ferrari’s, BMWs, Mercs, Lamborginis etc of this world. Simply put, Jaguar is automobile royalty.

But the price of royalty is quite steep, even for one of the scions of American capitalism, Ford Inc. So lands Jaguar on the bidding block, which the Tata Group seems to have all but sealed up not just based on the quoted price ( $2.05 Billion) but also because Ford isn’t too hung-ho on the two brands going to One Equity Partners the only other bidder left in the fray now that another Indian company Mahindra & Mahindra, has decided the deal isn’t as lucrative as it seemed to be earlier. One Equity partners is a private equity group which has roped in Mr.Nasser, Ford’s former CEO, but has no experience in the automobile industry let alone managing one of the world’s premium automobile brands.

What does it mean for Jaguar and Land Rover? and what does it mean for the Tatas? Well for starters Jaguar as a brand may reinvent itself going from just being one of the premium brands on the world automobile marquee which competes, and not always successfully, with other icons in the same space, to being THE car to have when you make your first million. And what better place to target those would be millionaires than Asia? The Tata marketing and logistics machinery, can and will, rev up the royalty quotient as is expected and add to that the high probability that a Jag will no longer be super-ultra expensive ( just ultra expensive!) when after 5 years either the whole car or most of its components will be produced in the in-expensive and highly competitive Indian labor market which will lead to substantial cost reduction in the production cycle, and one can easily imagine Jaguar having a better presense on not just European and American roads but Asian too .

Apart from this, the much reduced shipping costs will help the newly rich experience more than a whiff of royalty and class. After all, the Jag still commands immense respect both in the European and North American continents, though I suspect the Merc still remains the ‘I-hereby-Declare-that-I-am-Rich’ car for those who have just stepped into the world of riches and those who are rich but have seen better days (Read: Been Super rich).

I suspect that its just the right time for Jaguar to have passed on to a company that knows both the fast growing Indian market like the back of it’s hand and has more than a foot in other emerging economies like China, Brazil etc because let’s face it, these countries are going to be the economic drivers for the future, and when you combine the immense populations of these emerging economies coupled with the greater access to money (Read: Serious Money) earning opportunities that people in the aforementioned economies increasingly enjoy, there remains little doubt that the future of some of the world’s premium brands, not just in the automobile sector but all other major and minor sectors, will be governed by how well the players in those sectors tap the potential in these emerging markets. Because any CEO or VP – Business Development worth his/her salt would know that the real growth is in the world’s emerging economies with markets in most developed economies on the verge of saturation.

Coming to the Land Rover range, it’s problems aren’t as pronounced as Jaguar’s because it’s still one of the world’s top multi utility/activity/terrain vehicals and under Ford the brand did achieve a more than reasonable level of sales. Compared to the Jaguar the Land Rover obviously falls in the ‘cash cow’ category even though it’s one of the world’s premium automobile brands. The Land Rover hence is no doubt an essential part of the ‘package’ for any one daring enough to cage the wily Jaguar.

But for those from the land of the Royal Bengal Tiger , the Jaguar should be easy to tame!

Well miracles of miracles!…the simple explanation is 2 fold….One – I lost my password and for the life of me couldn’t remember it  ( too many sites, too many passwords….sound familiar?)….and Two: Way too much work of late ( thats one of the risks of becoming damn good at the work place, sometimes it leads to WAY too many additional responsibilities!)

But I am Back Finally….so sorry to those who logged on incessantly to find only ‘ GOOGLE THIS!’ staring them like a stubborn 5 year old in the face….

Be Ready for an Avalanche of Articles! ( You have been warned……)

 Yours Forgetfully,

 Pankaj