Feeling so Sunday

life is boring at 22. I can't imagine how unbearable it's going to be much later. Was I born out of place in the wrong age and place, or is this how life's always been? If the answer is the latter, then I suppose I'm ignorant of what it takes to make life meaningful beyond 22. Never realized life can be so depressive. My head is too full of childhood stories of men who wanted to live forever, who hated to die. I wonder what made them think that it would be a nice idea to be immortal when, I at the prime of my life at 22, already feel senile, wilted and wanting to explore death as an interesting turning point.
My survival has seized its connections with my interests, values, passions and pastimes that have defined me and made me what I am. I don't find me living my life in waking up and having to report to work that I don't appreciate doing.
I no longer take pleasure doing the little things that added meaning to life, like visiting the temple pond, short walks, occasional midnight meals with friends. The day is morose, and feels like the world will die a cold death at next dawn. I refuse to talk to much, I refuse to do anything worthwhile as I'm eaten by the emptiness of what life has become. No time to interact with friends, nobody to trust with secrets, no more group studies, no more outings to hill stations, no more beer parties, no more nothing. Suddenly I realize it's getting to late; I need to go crash right away to get some decent sleep before its dawn and an entire new day begins. Cause I know the world won't die a cold death so soon, and I would be left back, too back, if I don't run to the work I don't like; by all means hate.
I don't like to plan my entire day so that my work receives highest priority, when in actual priority is family and time for myself.
My thoughts break away, I feel tired thinking of the sharp turn life has taken after college. I fear I have to bear this all my life. I wish my life was short, so that I can put an end to this sooner. All my teachers were wrong about me, when they said I have a great future. How can something be great if it isn't even enjoyed? I only wish I could live the life of hope that I lived while in school or the glorious college life; glorious despite the small pockets. Every new person that I meet is graver than the previous. Probably that's how everyone feels about me too. Everybody's talking things that other doesn't understand, not even interested. Few are willing to listen. yet, everyone wants to be heard and I have become one among them. Far from what I wished I would be when I grew up, I'm everything like I never wanted to be; over working, impatient, complaining, unsatisfied and worldly ambitious. The best way to overcome my predicament is to crash soon and let Sunday pass while I'm asleep charging my spent spirit for another week of work I'm not passionate about.

People management

Great leaders have accomplished what they've because in addition to their visionary insights and persistent attempts they were great people managers. The art of managing fellow humans is indispensable for the success of  organizations on the longer run. While various theories exists to help managers decide their approach to management; good people management skills form the core of character of modern leaders who collaborate and perform team work to succeed. Good people managers are individuals who in nature have tremendous self-respect and manifest it through their actions several times a day in their interactions with fellow humans, be it one's reportee, friend, family member or just another person whom he meets. They recognize another man's self-respect as being equally important as theirs and abstains from acts that may startle the beholder's self-respect, which would then shake one's own self-request. Good leaders seldom raise their voice or speak crap out in anger. They are men who measure their words and have handle on their temper.
True leaders have in stock a variety of methods to see the task to completion, and their choice of strategy is solely based on its suitability to the problem encountered, as they believe there's no 'one fits all' solution for problems. Managers who often shout or resort to fear tactics to get the work done are out of place in today's consumer driven market where good customer experience that is pivotal to success depends to a large extent on good employee experience. Bigoted heads often miss the larger context of management in fulfilling the minor obligations of the trade, and end up drowning the organization in the process. The importance of proactive people management in a multicultural, equal participatory workforce is realized if we recognize that bosses are an employee's window to the organization. Most employees look up to their bosses for support and knowledge in discharging their responsibilities; and ill-educated manager often think of themselves as men who have to be flattered and fulfilled if a reportee were to have a career in the organization. Sadly, such organizations do not survive. And the cause of its defeat would be its own employees, who though very capable failed because they're fighting the whimsies and fancies of their bosses instead of being productive at work. Most managers wrongly logic that fear and insecurity drives productivity. On the contrary, in a employment rich market, able employees will seek opportunities where they can freely express their inventive ideas than try to save their jobs. It's a sad fact that some managers still languish in age old practices of enforcing work on his reportees using fear tactics like in the zamindari-peasant system. Fear might work to force complete work that doesn't require creativity and inventiveness. Employing the same tactics in a creative workspace takes away space for ideas to take shape. This will at best lead to the erosion of the top performers acting against the interest of the organization, hampering it's progress. Able people managers know this potency of fear to wipe out organization's best talent and are always on their guard in employee relations.

Friends' day out

We set out later than we planned after confusions caused by the previous night's rains and attrition of friends from the plan. We were a modest group of seven at eleven 'o' clock and weren't  expecting anymore to join. At half past noon, the five boys arrived at VGP universal kingdom along ECR (east coast road) in two batches. It was decided to spend the day at VGP itself after finding the ladies' proposal to visit Mahabalipuram untenable upon consideration. We ventured into the theme park on rs.315 tickets and engaged in the regular merry making. The ambiance, however, seemed to suggest more of a haunted dungeon of all the cursed vampires living in exile. And even before we got to terms with the vapid air, we realized to our dismay that even the most basic rides were available only upon a separate fee over and above what was charged as entry fee.

Another shock awaited at the pool when we were forced to wear uniforms for another rental fee instead of being allowed to wear swim suits we carried with us. We managed to negotiate the fee though after an altercation with the managing staff at the rental counter. Just as we sighed relief hoping all our disappointments had ended, we discovered that the wave pool floor had not yet been laid with tiles. The concrete, worn out of the poor painting threatened to bruise holidaying visitors and the unfortunate trooper of our group was John who lent his knee against the rough concrete and got it scratched. Nothing notwithstanding we enjoyed through the day in the pool and shower as Sandy sat over our slippers of all our belongings.

If you're waiting to see the incomparably noble hearted Sandy who sacrificed the pleasures of pool to oversee our sandals, you can easily distinguish her in the snap below.

Intermittently we clicked few crazy poses to have a record of the celebration to conjure/catalyze the magical moments at a later time, and not to mention to flaunt on social networks. The traditional picture of encircled feet was one of it and followed closely.

 

 The dancing bird couldn't anymore control her impulse after the dance floor opened. She swiftly swung her charming moves and moved enchantingly across the floor, swooning the rest of the troopers along into the mood.    

I could only, awkwardly, follow from the inspiration.

We even explored few moves on the floor and went ahead and captured them for the record.

How could our favorite Goudarmani step be left out in this reckless spree of shower dance. You can see on the background that by now we're joined by hordes of more pastime dancers.

Around 3:30pm we realized that we hadn't had lunch we stepped out of the water park and shot the final souvenir of a place we decided never to come back again until it became evidently apparent that the managers had demonstrated their will not to disappoint visitors with foolish policies and pricing.

We lunched at Pitstop, again on ECR, at supper time where the idea behind the graphic below was suggested by Satz..

Imman, Sandy, John, Vasi, Maits, Satz & myself

Sandy was quick to realize that we're not going to make it to Dakshin Chitra after she checked the time and made sense out of it. She required minimal consolation, as usual. As we ate we recounted from the repositories of our funny drunken episodes. While most had some story to narrate, others silently absorbed the Zen wisdom as masters and amateurs spoke in turns. It was not without proposing a plan for a bigger outing that we cleared the place. Some where during the confab, Satz made mention of hookah. That's all the required spur to set Maits up and we dragged ourselves to Drizzle to ensure that we didn't end the outing prematurely. After fruit salads and hookah and whoo uh huh ( mild coughing), we drove back in to our destinations bidding farewell to the communion.

chant of night and sleep

Days ripe with rigorous work
nights will soothe the bruises and tears
in the stillness and silence
in the mysterious darkness
desires catch fire flamed by
the tunes ears love to hear
dreaming distant dreams of past
of trails tests and losses
and impending glory, waving
its little hopeful hand
in the darkness, silence and stillness
of the night; slumber sweeps the
bruises and heals all wears.

The short brown sock

the short brown sock cuffed inside my shoes
stained and dry wafts its rich cotton scent
to be touched, unfurled stretched and worn
I turn drawn by the tender mischief
of my brown sock, camouflaged in vain
inside the brown walls of the shoe
Summoning nostalgic memories
of intimacy forgotten since school
comforting like rest after heavy sport
The short brown stained cotton sock was
not touched, stretched or worn
It lay where it lay and I where I stood

Gen C

What do you do when you earn well but have no obligations? when the stupid job that makes no sense to you makes you rich. You resort to derive satisfaction from ostensible extravagance in the company of friends, strangers and relatives. Never bargain or ask for the price of anything on the shelves of a lavish store even as you secretly suspect of being overcharged.You let go of your rightful water at the food court choosing to buy a coke, instead of claiming the water you're obligated to be served. We are the highly educated ignorant bastards from the finest institutions who clog the corporate asylums to fill our hollow lives with meaningless wealth. We swivel without direction in our vulgar quest for excessive material wealth. In the process we invariably forget our responsibilities towards our family, society, nation and humanity at large. The tradition of learning without questioning has crippled our ability to boldly question the illegitimate practices of the many immoral business houses that have proliferated the neighborhood. Thoughtless bidding on limited natural resources like living space in cities, water, food and cereals have inflated their costs to such heights where they're out of reach to the large masses that truly value these resources. It's not just others lives that we mess, our profligate tendencies and complacence over our accomplishments haunt our relationships too; something that we never understand even after being through a dozen of them. Friendships, to us is the limited human experience of sharing cocktails, jokes and birthday bums; and the occasional accomplice in abusing the mutually disagreeable in drunken confessions. They never mature beyond being a mere companion at mischief.
The end, an overly simple life without fulfilling friendship, soulful love or meaningful objective filled with useless materials that ensure our distraction from the true pleasures of life. We are piling up more and more of materials in a mad race for their possession, competing and comparing ourselves with peers and fellows for social dominance and admiration.Confused as we are, our priorities are skewed. We refuse to spend even a fraction of the time we spend at work with the people that love us. We appreciate music we don't understand, embrace styles that discomfort us and work to impress them who don't give a damn for us. Unfortunately, none of us realize what we miss until it's too late. Sadly, our irresponsible lifestyles affect the economically under privileged who are unequally challenged by our consumer exploits. Course correction is long over due and utmost for us to reclaim our lost pleasures and peace of mind. With all the wealth creating capacity that education has endowed on us, if we recommit ourselves to humanity and social welfare, not only will our society improve, also will our lives become much more rich, purposeful and satisfying. We are the corporate generation, a generation that is a product of a confused education system. Yet we are the hopefuls for a combative comprehensive change; and change we shall bring.

Imprisonment

Imprisoned turkeys

Few of us are unfortunate as these turkeys in the picture which presumably have to spend the reminder of their lives in wooden enclosures for no fault of theirs. Their long necks stretched through the gap between the wood planks, they search for freedom on the faces of by-passers. I've always believed a bird's world is vast to man's. Given their wings and freedom birds are unquestionably the most freely roaming creatures.Well that's not the case for our trapped birdies guarded inside the wooden cage held by rusted nails. They are detained and denied freedom.

Summer intenship 2011

I was angry, frustrated and confused when I arrived in the small town of Silvassa, in Dadra and Nager Haveli lying on the foothills of the majestic Western Ghats. I couldn't tolerate the delay in the grant of autonomy, and was only awaiting mom's departure back to Chennai, until which I hardly lived a peaceful moment.
I wished mommy 'adieu' early on mother's day and took the time I had to vacate the room and the horrors I did to myself in trying to resist the idea of being a pampered child. Packing my belongings, I cursed my rudeness and wondered if I could have averted or, at least, expressed my displeasure politely. I felt sorry for mom for having pampered me enough that rendered me wholly insensitive to the worries of an over-protective mom.
Akhil opened the door, probably cursing me for disturbing his Sunday's sleep, after I knocked the door twice, pressed the calling bell and finally rang him up when nothing worked as I moved into the apartment that will be my residence for a little over a month. His sleep was disturbed forever. I unpacked my stuff, wondering where I should empty my luggage. Unwilling to use the cupboard in the master bedroom, I decided to use my suitcase as the makeshift wardrobe.
I felt a sense of relief after tucking the money bag in the clandestine cupboard next to the one heavily guarded by rats. It was oblivion that gave me the courage to handle the cupboard on the wall in the second bedroom.
Akhil, then took me for a walk to his Sunday break-fast and on our way back introduced me to some of his friends, who would eventually be my colleagues. I wondered how to spend the remainder of the day and without much thought gave up to settling in the new household. Following a tiresome morning was a festive evening with the kids in the apartment, who offered me to join them in their game, cricket ,and as a price made me their laughing stock owing to my misgivings of their local cricketing rules and foreigner-like-familiarity with Hindi, the language of the boys on the field. This is the most diverse group I've ever been; there were kids of all age between 7 and 15 and grownups like myself and Akhil. Ujjwal, my other roomy will not join the match this evening, but is usually a part of this troupe. I watched my first, and only, IPL match of the season in the restaurant Akhil to us for alfresco dinning. The kids didn't seem to like the place and so we drove to a smaller regular resto-bar. for Akhil's farewell treat close to midnight and separated from it by only a little over an hour.

I rushed to sleep after getting back late and tired from the party. Akhil, Ujjwal and myself drove to the plant after I got Yogesh sir's consent to join a day earlier. Yogesh, I learned from Akhil was a Captain and was referred as Capt.Yogesh by Akhil. I too chose to address him that way, hoping to flatter him to have him trust some meaningful job to me. But, it turned out that flattery was unnecessary as Capt. had already decided the job for me. I waited in the lobby where I was asked to sit by the cheeky receptionist and wait for Capt. who would come by 9a.m. Capt. did not come even as the clock passed the 9:30 mark and I decided to give him a call to inquire his whereabouts as I was concerned that he could have forgotten about my joining today. Capt. answered my call and informed he was coordinating an external training program and would reach plant very soon, and hung up the call.
There began my guessing game to identify Capt., as men walked to the biometric to enter login details. He couldn't be loosely shaved, too lean or too fat given his association with the army. I also thought he must be a handsome middle-aged man after judging his tone and tenor as pleasant; I'd no resistance to prejudice and bias and was as vulnerable as any victim to such prejudice. However, it turned out that my prejudice was right as Capt. Yogesh was more like what I thought him to be. I introduced myself with words I could find at that time and earned the introduction of Capt.Yogesh Kumar Gaur in return.
My first assignment was to draft a policy on metro-allowance for employees moving in and out of metro locations of the company. Captain seemed impressed with my first job and was more confident of assigning me the second task which will be my job for the remaining duration of the internship. I was simply told that I will be joined by another intern, a girl,  from a local college with whom I will team up to complete the assignment.
The next day a bright young lady sat dressed smartly in full professional gear in the waiting lobby with her farther. Something about this girl told me that she should be the other intern Capt. referred to yesterday and inquired with her to establish the veracity of my prediction. To say that I was stunned by her confident introduction is an understatement. I had not expected a local girl raised completely in the neighborhood to speak English so well and so correct.That's only the beginning of my prejudices. I soon discovered a good friend and welcome companion in her. Though I had difficulties with Nishita, she made me realize the trivialities of my difficulties by making me aware of my disabilities. But all that happened during the far end of my stay.
That evening Akhil was to throw one more party, his last one in Silvassa. This was to his colleagues and adult friends and I was invited to this one too. I saw more of Srinath and Anbu at the party who insisted I give alcohol a try by starting with beer. Though I politely refused I began to entertain the thought of first drink. There was everything, music, dance, hugs, gifts and photographs that were needed to make it complete.

We returned to our tenement and everything all of a sudden became gloomy as I realized Akhil will not be around from the next dawn. Never did I dislike him for attempting to influence my choices in beverage or trying to teach me how to get along with new people. But, all of a sudden the thought of missing a person who took interest in my social learning, struck me like a current shock. I was too tired and didn't speak much except handing him a little card on which I scrambled something I came up with a little earlier.
After 1p.m. a cab drove by the apartment we lived to take Akhil to the airport. That was the last time I saw Akhil.
The next morning I woke up prepared to face the task of living in an unknown town whose people spoke an unknown language, without the support of my friend (Akhil) who was my mediator until then in social interactions. The first challenge was to befriend Ujjwal my lone roomy now. Ujjwal was an easy-going fun loving sporty personality and it was too easy to get along with him. While I hoped to learn Hindi from him he desired to know more about the origins of my English accent. We liked the deal.
I didn't want to spend the rest of my spare time in the evenings in the attic of the apartment. So I decided to take walks. I explored the market street, bazaar road, churches and temples alone in a cheerful town. Having not made any far in making anymore friends in the town, I pushed my Hindi more and more with shopkeepers and kids in the  building. Important among my ventures on foot were the ones along the highway.

The roads led to eerie villages through curvy roads across the unassuming brook; beside which I sat every evening wondering what drew me towards it every time I crossed it, and many more posers in the realm of philosophy. I grew such intimacy with the brook that many a times the destination of my walks have been its bank. I walked all the way up to the stream just to have a seat on its bank. I discovered few more places, beyond the brook, that were guarded by dogs and song birds. When I got tired I made calls to home and friends away in other places for internships. Sometimes I plugged the headphones in to revive myself. But it was on another occasion without the headphones that I first heard the distant music that filled the air and followed me all the way up to the brook.

No matter what time of the night it was, it was always heard and I never missed it once unless I was not paying attention to it. The music was tribal recreation coming from areas inhabited by the tribal clans. What a wonderful social life must these people be enjoying spending the entire evening with their family and friends singing songs and tapping to them. All of it appeared farfetched when I thought about it from where I sat beside the brook. We are never going to socialize the simple-minded way like the tribals. As I spent my evenings drenching in thoughts, walking and listening to folk tunes and watch the brook dry I never longed to be logged in on facebook or any other social media.
My work at the time-being was not demanding, in fact it hadn't actually begun and we had already lost a week in preparations and presentations before the plant heads and chiefs of the company, giving Nishita and myself to plan our work and clarify our roles clearly. Bright Gomez, the new man on Aparajita's roles joined on Captain's recommendation. Bright too was a Tamil. I was a little skeptical about Bright in the beginning but eventually made  good friends with him. We had lunch together with Nishita, Anuraj and many other new buddies who were all fascinated by my accent, despite being disturbed marginally.

On evenings Gomez would team with me for dinner and casual walks to nearby places. We discussed about girls, the plant, Captain and his life and home in Tuticorin. On a weekend we visited  Daman beach with Akash (Sowmya's brother). Gomez opened up, on our journey back to Silvassa, his grief about his girl friend being married off to another man today. He delighted in recalling memories of them together as he narrated me the whole episode of his love with the girl from his hamlet.  That night we dinned at Maruthi dosa center on Captain's advice, only to discover they offer nearly 80 different kinds of dosas on their menu; that's much higher than any restaurant in Chennai that I've known. We regularly met to eat outside and sometimes I invited him to come over to eat at my apartment. Anuraj and Gomez became friends too and the three of us ate out at times.It soon became the three of us discussing girls, but we could never work a plan to have Anuraj with us in our weekend trips.
On another weekend I visited Priya who was interning in Nashik. We visited several places in and around Nashik. She arranged for me to stay at Anurag's house, her colleague from Bosch. Chandini, Priya's roomie accompanied us to all the places we went, adding the zest of a school girl.

Mani came down to visit us on another weekend and along with Gomez we visited a few places around Silvassa. We missed a few items on the itinerary after Mani and Bright had got tired from the walks we undertook in the morning. Earlier the day, Mani was stranded in the bus depot after I dozed on the couch waiting for him till midnight. When I woke up a around 3'o' clock I was shocked to find close to thirty missed calls. I rushed to the bus stand to receive bhai with my hands stretched out.

Our project had progressed a good measure along the plans, however slower than estimated, and I was becoming increasingly busier at work after the safety orientation by Srinath granted us full liberty to walk any where inside the plant with necessary precautions. Nishita and I were constantly encouraged by the staff and Captain disposed every resource to make it working for us. The major stumbling blocks were the department heads lack of time for us to answer a few questions and review our drafts. This resulted in a serious limitation that could not be overcome inspite of me postponing my departure by a week. Against the target of neary 80 JD's we'd made only 20. I was worried that Nishita would be compelled to complete the remaining all by herself, when my absence will have already seriously affected her motivation.
In the meantime I agreed to postpone my stay by a week in return for assistance for accommodation and in booking railway tickets. Captain guaranteed to look after both my concerns and my departure was prolonged. 
As days went by I was starting to feel restless and wanted to return home; not because I missed home, but because I came here prepared only for a month's stay and I had bypassed that by a week. The tragic demise of the dad of my friends (brothers) in the apartment struck me like a speeding bullet. Knowing not what to do or how to respond, I went near his apartment and stood there until I could no longer bear the sight of the grieving brothers.
The remaining days were spent in bouts of dejection and rejoice over the progress of our project. I'd my maiden beer on a happy occasion with Captain. The plant was preparing for the Copper committee meeting of the month and for our part I was assigned to present the project to the vice president when called. I had my second beer at the late night dinner, with the Copper committee being unable to refuse Captain before committee members, where I was taken to present the progress.
After the Copper committee meeting Captain offered to lift me to Mumbai the next morning. Even though my train was at 7pm I agreed thinking I could spend the day seeing around Mumbai a bit. I packed up my stuff cautious not to disturb Ujjwal and stepped out of the apartment, that was my home for a month, by 5am. Captain vividly narrated his story from his early college days up till his marriage with Mahima on our journey. Some of it I already knew from Gomez, yet I nodded like I heard it for the first time. I spent the day till evening at Vedanta's corporate house at Solitaire building studying as Captain conducted lateral recruitment for top positions in the company's finance cell. I was dropped somewhere in the middle of the road from where I boarded a taxi to Dadar station. The taxi man like the others, I'd met in Mumbai earlier, was conversant in English and inquisitive. I got off the Dadar station street and after preliminary struggles with the commuters pushing past each other, I found the cloak room where I deposited my luggage and left for shopping. I had the last of my embarrassments in one shop where I had to cut short on my purchases after I couldn't locate my debit card in my wallet at the billing counter. I hurried to the station, as if that will make me out of the incident's reach. I boarded the train and sat silently behind the curtains of my cubicle and away from the noise of the compartment trying to assimilate my experiences of the last one month. I was not fond of going back home either where, upon reaching, I would again be treated like a kid. I knew I was going away from the independence I enjoyed, and yet I'd to go.
A few days in a little town I never knew existed dramatically turned my outlook of fun, travel and people. It has given me memories to look back, fall on and anchor to in times of need; those that will encourage me to forget, to forgive and carry on with my life.

Countering petrol price

Here are a few ways to keep your petro bills down in the wake of sudden steep rise in the price of petrol. Nothing has ever been achieved without a measure of risk, and the following recommendations are fraught with inherent opportunities for failure, so exercise discretion before you adopt these suggestions.

One-> Forget speed
It is an established fact that driving slow requires less frequent braking and thereby saves fuel. This is the recommendation, perhaps the only one, that is low on risk. The immediate fallout of the practice is being late to all your meetings, if you don't plan well enough. However if you persist you may reap the long term benefits, i.e, getting used to being late !!

Two-> Avoid braking
If you're unable to follow suggestion one then you most certainly have to find a way to be rash. Drive on speed beakers, pits and through crowds like a freak mob. You'd be scaring everybody around you and yourself as you strive to achieve your goal of fuel economy; but that's not your concern so long as it delivers results. Beginners finding coping with this rule difficult can have their brake wires removed at the local mechanic.
If you're stopped by police action then thank him profusely  for saving your life and tell him if he could help you with fixing the failed brake!!

Three-> Forget the head light and leave it alone
Most bikes still power their headlights by burning fuel. So if you keep your fingers off the head light button you are saving petrol for running. Of course, it's risky but you've got to take it to attain max. fuel efficiency. For lovers of grace, replace your working headlight bulb with a fused one so that you've an excuse of questioned by cop. It may not spare you fines though, it makes night driving more adventurous. So if you're an adventure seeker you have more than one reason why you must not disturb your head light. You will have driven high beam, low beam; try no beam !!!

Four-> Let the sick men die
We are a populous country with a bounty of rich and middle class who are permanently sick and traveling in ambulances all the time. Don't trouble making way for these reckless jerks transporting at the partial expense of your mercy, if that will require you to brake or miss a green signal. We are well over a billion now, so taking away a few from the electoral rolls won't considerably affect our numbers or the size of our demography.

Five-> Demand flexi-working
Several organizations around the world are making profiles attractive by making several features of the job flexible. Perhaps it's time you demand for a work-from-home privilege to save you the cost incurred in traveling to workplace. If refused follow the Air India pilot model, go on sick leave for as many days allowed and avail all other leaves with wages. If it doesn't seem alright to you to work in such a rigid environment, then quit the job and pick up a job on the internet. There are a lot of fanciful internet jobs that are promoted like incredible cash cows. Don't worry if you're cheated, lots have already been and many more will join the list. So you know you're not alone !!

Six-> Be more choosy and develop some taste for parties
There are parties almost every now and then these days. Now if you have to attend all of them, it will entail a travel cost, i.e, a fuel expense. So the only way to avoid all the additional financial burden of attending parties is to be more choosy about the events you decide to participate. Have a separate budget allotted for how much you can spend on parties and spend only that much. A good friend always understands you and the bad one is identified by his/her refusal to understand your predicament. So here again you see how well the recommendation serves you apart from saving on petro-bills.

Seven-> Study fuel technology
It is never too late to start learning; especially if it matters so much as petrol. You can develop hybrid fuel suitable for your bike and make money selling the technology to giants.

Eight-> Paint your automobile black
This can be your trump card for fuel savings; because their is no study relating fuel efficiency to the color of the bike/car this can prove worthwhile. Superstitions are anything but new to our country, a few more will not be too much especially if it gives you the satisfaction of attaining fuel efficiency.
If you choose to follow this recommendation, you have chosen the most creative recommendation. You can develop many such suggestions for yourself depending on your taste and talent.

Reparing education

Did we invent prayers to be recited and repeated regularly but never to be understood? Why does it happen all the time in India that we cannot resist the temptation to recite the prayer in Sanskrit even if no one, barring a few, understand it. We have come a long way since the times of the Sanskrit tradition when Sanskrit was the language in active public use, if such times existed. Our obsessive love for our ancient classical language blinds us from purpose every time we refuse to render prayers from Vedic, or other Sanskrit texts, translated into a language understood by the masses. The significance, however great, embodied in our prayers is unavailable for the audience when recited even a million times in a language that the audience doesn't understand. Consequentially when our behaviour contradicts what we ask for in our prayer, we seem like hypocrites. This is a sad reflection of the turn of things in our country since the time of the departure of our imperialists. We established governance, adopted a democratic model and did splendidly well for us to think we'd done a great job. But, the seeds we sowed haven't yielded as it could have, if our implementation of our intentions were less flawed. Consequentially, we have grown disproportionately over time. We have become wealthy, yet remain impoverished in our values leading to rampant corruption in every sphere of national existence. One wonders what went wrong in the middle after a good head start. Perhaps, it’s our approach towards education that has sunk us. While we paid close attention to educate our countrymen on science, math and other competitive subjects and fields, we completely ignored the purpose of education in adding to the character of the individual. We’ve only regarded education as a means to impart knowledge of few techniques to solve industrial problems that will enable one remain in contention for a job or other in the employment market. The chief purpose of education, that is to shape the overall personality of the learner, has largely been ignored as we mechanically condition ourselves to think and act in a particular way; forgetting the fact that we are capable of inventing ways; ways that are different and better than the existing ones. And when individuals trained on such inadequate systems of education become employed, they can be hardly expected to deliver anything beyond what they learned from the limiting education they received. Most of us have do not realize our fullest potentials, simply because we’ve been led to believe that our capacity to accomplish is only so much, because there is only so much to achieve. This limits our imagination and forces us to dwell on what has already been accomplished, which we gladly accept as reality. Consequently we become corrupt to gain wealth and power, when we realize that what we’ve learnt doesn’t capacitate us to tread beyond the ordinary. It is this tendency of our present education system to create ordinary minds that fuels our contemporary problems. So any movement for social change should begin at the level where if targeted the impact would be relatively permanent. And that is education; to be more specific, primary education. We have to make education more purposive than what it is today by including study of subjects that interests the student than what the parent feels the education of his/her child be. Liberty and democracy should be introduced when the student is still in classrooms by way of granting the ward the choice of what one receives. We didn’t invent education to make industrial slaves who would learn quickly through rote and be ready for work when they are matured for such work. The gradual process of education should respect the needs and interests of the protégé and be customised to make it learner centric for education to realize its fullest benefits to the individual and society at large. We can begin the process of re-inventing education by reviving indigenous arts and crafts, translating native texts to different languages to make them accessible for our large and vast mass of people. The efforts though conceived originally as welfare measures to people would have far reaching implications in establishing micro-entrepreneurs across the breadths of the country, creating jobs and markets to fully absorb and deliver its merits to the entire population. The radicalisation of education should put in place a system that is different from the existing one that rates performance of the student by assessing his/her ability to reproduce. Ratings should follow qualitative criteria like imagination, innovation; creativity etc. and ways to make such an assessment possible must be found. All efforts should be directed to make education more purposive, i.e., empower the learners to be self-reliant, moral and guarded against victimization. Our social maladies, at least most of them, have their origin in improper and inadequate training of the mind. Legislations or a handful of individuals cannot correct them. Reserving corruption to fewer hands is all that stronger legislations can do, by inflating the cost of corrupt services. Stronger legislations, if at all, will marginalise the deprived even more, leaving us no plausible short term fix for the problem. A comprehensive re-alignment of our policies and strategy towards primary education is our only tool to repair the fault lines in our society.