A Small story-what a fall!

 

My countrymen and women !

ere long air travel was a luxury enjoyed by a few.

cabin crew, from what i hear , then called air hostesses caught the eye of some business magnates and became part of their family.

the hostesses would usher us in to the seats.

we had our cuppa , our breakfast or whatever at airlines' cost .

and they were so helpful .

imagine a situation when the crew protests because they have to shove the baggage into the rack above or respond to some unusual situations.

and who is a captain of the plane !

I remember Nelson Mandela travelling first class while many of his followers were travelling economy.

when the captain came to pay his respects , Madela asked him for a favour.

that his followers be accommodated in first class. fortunately there were enough seats .

but i mention this as an example of the captain's powers to do or undo anything on the plane.

i am told the virgin airlines boss checks in as an ordinary person to find out how the crew is handling the passengers.

in our greed for money we have holiday crowds spilling on to the streets at checkin time.

there is a turnaround in values to such an extent that airline passengers be aware of their rights.

i am not blaming the crew alone.

there are other factors too.

i asked a former crew member about how she could stand long hours without her vericose veins being affected.

she admitted that she was on medication.

and the girl was in her thirties.

so many jobs demand this kind of posturing .

i am surprised no doctor, no organisation has raised this issue.

no wonder the front line workers in the hospitality sector, at the counters in banks and other institutions are grumpy.

is there any special training for them ?

relaxation techniques and the like.

i am familiar  with the kind of pressures and strains the media is exposed.

are they protected?

many of them, they say, are under contract.

and as everyone knows, contracts get terminated at the whims and fancies of bosses.

not the boss.

this applies to all group activity.

the leader wins both ways whether he deserves it or not.

coming back to airlines it is time the crew Realise we keep them going , not the managements of airlines.

Brahmin-The Hatred

 I would not know for certain why i was born a brahmin.

If i had the power to be otherwise before birth perhaps i would have altered it.

the super brahmins these days , call them by any name, have a fine , cushy life.

some of them do not work , they need not.

some of them deserve not their promotion.

but they get it.

For the sins of my ancestors 40 or 50 generations ago i am suffering.

and more than all, pl remember brahmins do not jell with each other.

they have their divisions, subdivisions and sub-subdivisions.

and most of them are incapable of violence.

so their vulnerability is yet more.

in the beginning the non-brahmins would scoff at them and leave it at that.

later they were victims of violence or worse.

from madras presidency as it was known then waves of hatred reached the present day karnataka .

then the reservation bug hit us.

the bug became a bear and was on the point of swallowing everything.

the courts had to step in.

reservation, i understand, was never meant to last for ever.

now there is no hope of this shadow on merit as perceived by the intelligentsia receding.

yet you find brahmins occupying key positions everywhere , some of them in leading corporate entities here and abroad.

i do not hold a brief for brahmins , they have their weak points. one of them is that they get satiated easily.

in my limited way i am doing some research.

there is never enough land or wealth for non-brahmins.

For a  brahmin who is one both by birth and inclination material possessions matter for the sole reason that they could promote societal causes.

kumaraswamy's diatribe against brahmins is in bad taste.

for the simple reason that it is more a political ploy .

caste based politics is the name of the game now.

there is a scramble to please the backward segments and the backward in the forward segment.

i am praying for the day when the beneficiary or the intended beneficiary spurns these freebies ,

as the parsis did .

Will that day ever dawn!

The new chat device-ChatGPT

 The latest device a AI is the chat.

It is Rumoured to supplant scribes, teachers and misguide the seekers of  real knowledge.

while the fake and the real debate has many shades, what is of concern is education.

the higher powers are all worked up and search is on for effective responses.

one of them is to make the students face the test or examination and award grades on their performance.

good enough but in this season of paper leaks how does one guarantee the results ?

a colleague of mine who is no more brought in his expertise and caught the students using sophisticated devices in the exam hall.

he was a professor of communications and had the edge over the cheats.

then he was framed in a case from which he extricated himself with difficulty .

what happened next was even more appalling.

after his retirement in the university he was serving as  principal of a college.

the unfortunate aspect was that he was politically connected also.

someone planted the idea that such a one as he deserved to be vice chancellor , no less.

now it is common knowledge that such posts carry a premium.

and perhaps the premium was arranged at great cost.

when the list was out his name was missing.

because of his age he had also forfeited his chance for ever.

his last moments were spent with his wife . 

they had a long conversation, it is said, and he went into his room.

next day he was discovered dead.

harking back to glory days we had an editor who could, at a glance, decipher the motive behind a letter writer.

i have also met a few gentlemen who could read your minds effortlessly.

perhaps technology has made these skills redundant.

here comes the challenge.

how to distinguish between the real and the fake ?

in my experience no spellcheck could differentiate between there and their, or hear and here.

if the technology has improved i would not know.

spellcheck threw the tribe of proofreaders out of the newsrooms.

god knows how many would be losing their jobs due to this device.

let me round this off with an amusing anecdote.

a manuscript from an aspiring writer landed on George Bernard Shaw's table.

after perusing it, shaw sent this response.

your novel is both good and original.

where it is good , it is not original and where it is original, it is not good.

reminds me of another incident.

an author walks into a publisher's den and offers his ms.

after scrutinising it, the publisher queries whether it is his own writing.

the author says yes.

the publisher stands up, and with due reverence shakes hands with the author and greets him warmly :

i am honoured to meet you , william shakespeare.!

The Budget

 

The union budget presented by nirmala seetharaman, at the outset, is a middle class budget.

Her comment s day or two earlier earlier hinted at this. variations are any of what the middle class stands for.

in one definition it is that they have neither the benefit of rich legacy nor privilege.

they slog their way to recognition and generally choose to forget their roots if it suits their purpose, or so say the critics.

not for them the luxuries of the born wealthy.

not for them the right to adopt their own lifestyle.

like the lower classes.

torn between respectability and show they choose the latter and suffer silently.

if one were to conduct a survey most suicides occur in this category.

catching up with the joneses is the name of the game. one slip and heaven knows where they land!

in any case let us take a good look at the budget  now.

some steps are taken to bring down the cost of electric vehicles.

as an ordinary man i often wonder why tech wise india did not wake up in time.

well before covid compelled us to take a hard look.

it is good that the defence sector gets more funds.

one does not know much about the competition commission and its work in india but one does see several neighbour rivals converge for a common cause , and the most effective way is to arm them to the hilt .

like taliban gaining chinese support.

e-courts is a fine step to ease the load on the judiciary.

fast track courts and family courts and consumer courts were set up to expedite justice.

how far they have succeeded ,one does not know.

our planners in the early days were visionaries.

skill development was fostered by industrial training institutes and the like.

self-employment needs easy funding and if this is ensured the employment situation will improve.

ah, the millets!

the poor man's favourite at one time is gaining prominence for a different reason

we are happy that the son of the soil prime minister's preferred food is finding its way to the elite's table.

Saptarshi , Amrit kal  have found their way into the budget , perhaps for the first time.

let us hope what is promised is realised and our nation regains its glory.

one word of caution those.

not all the credit belongs to one party or one leader.