Lessons...with a pinch of salt!

Was home alone last Sunday and generally prefer to do some cooking when alone. Rice, daal and Potato fry seemed to be a perfect menu for dinner.

The dinner was ready in no time. Though I had put in all efforts to make the best, I couldn’t match my Mom’s cooking. After all, maa k haath ka khane ka koi jawab nahi hota.

The first bite and I realised something was missing.  A typical issue with salt is it has to be in perfect quantity. Salt is typical – it has to be in perfect quantity. The absence of salt makes the food tasteless and so does excess of it. I had not added salt – either to daal or to potato fry.

Got some salt from kitchen and added it to Potato fry straightaway. The next bite was still tasteless. The salt was still missing. When I tasted the daal, then I realised that salt was missing in daal and not in the fry. I had blindly added salt to potatoes without even checking what lacked salt. The potatoes were more salty than required and the dinner ended up being not so tasty.

Sometime after dinner I had a thought,

How often do we end up trying to solve issues which are not the actual problems and turn a blind eye to the real problems?

Just a thought to ponder…..... :)

Who threw the garbage out?

“Seng daal, Moong dal…….”

“Chiki bolo chiki…..”

Do these sound familiar to you? Well, if you are among one of those who hit Mumbai CST in the rush evening hours, these would be definitely familiar. After a day’s long work, you need something that can restore your energy to levels that would be enough to take you home. After all, travelling by a local, in the rush hour, in Mumbai aint easy. You need a lot of energy!

This scene, too, would be familiar after the train hits a couple of stations - the packet in which the stuff was bought is thrown out of the window. Sometimes, I feel this eating and throwing act just comes out naturally. Some of those who eat and throw, carry fat books – seem to be educated, but are they?

Once in an early morning Vashi –Mumbai CST local, I had the luxury of standing at the doors. The train soon was on the bridge over Vashi Creek. The breeze was so pleasant. There was something unpleasant as well. I could see a couple of parcels of garbage (my logic could not make out if there could be anything else) hurled out of the train into the still waters. Logically, these were carried from home to be dumped. But then, is the creek supposed to be a dumping yard?

An incident narrated by one of my friends had a huge lesson for us. He threw a chocolate wrapper on the floor and his boss picked the same, walked some 20 odd steps and put it where it should have been put –in the dustbin. Simple isn’t it? He could have just ignored it. But he didn’t. It was a life time lesson for my friend, the group of which he was a part and all of us to whom he narrated it. Since then, searching for a bin has become a habit for me. Earlier it wasn’t. Later, I learnt his boss had spent a significant part of his life in the US. So, does our civic sense have something to do with it?

But then, there are these road side paani-puri walas, stalls selling vada pavs…. Some of these really impress me when they direct their customers to throw the plates, papers etc at the designated bin/carry bag. They obviously want to keep the place which buys them their ‘bread and butter’ clean. Don’t we?

For an individual it may just be a small plastic bag, a small plate, a small disposable glass, and a small ice-cream cup….Put together, they pile up and turn into huge garbage. Were we not taught "Cleanliness is next to Godliness", "Environment Pollution" etc.

Are we then, somewhere, somehow, not responsible for the dirty garbage in the city??

Somewhere we are………….!

Teach India

Education, we were told, is the backbone of development. It sounds logical beyond anyone’s doubt. It was the second visit to a school as volunteers to assist teachers from Teach for India campaign and the development story of India didn’t look too bright.

A brief conversation with TFI volunteers out there – we felt, we were lucky enough to be among the better lot who had access to better education, infrastructure and what not. The students out there in grade V had comprehension skills of those who are just in Grade II. These kids when they pass SSC would be just having skills of just a grade VI. We may have Right to Education and education for all but will this really help? Delivery of quality education, probably, has taken a back seat. God knows which way we are heading…

We lack teachers - for obvious reasons. The system doesn’t produce many and neither is it remunerative for someone to choose a teaching career, unless it’s a tuition academy! The TFI guys are doing a really commendable job. Something for a social cause, beyond the call of duty, travelling across country, educating (not just delivering literacy) kids….

Something which was more concerning was the way few teachers from the school were shifting onus of teaching kids to tuition teachers. “Tuition padhane walo ko answer likhwana nahi aata” was one of the few comments made by a teacher. Is education only about kids learning answers by heart to a few questions – really difficult to understand.

We boast of world class institutions (IIMs, IITs etc) at one end but when it comes to primary and secondary education we are way behind…way way behind.

The Grounded Flight!!!

The day had not been the way I had expected to be. Purvottar Sampark Kranti was late by little over thirty hours and my parents missed the annual function of ICAI at Delhi. In their absence the Award Function did not seem exciting to me as it was in 2007. I could just meet Mom and Dad for about fifteen minutes and had to rush to the airport.

I had to board from T3 and the structure was Majestic. I would have enjoyed being there had it been any other normal day but the way things turned out during the day, I was in no mood to appreciate the appreciable. The flight was delayed by thirty minutes as the incoming flight arrived late (as usual).

Some angry passengers took on the staff out there complaining how Kingfisher flights are always delayed. The anger could be understood as it was already 11:30 at night . Some going to extent complaining that KF had huge debt in its books which it never repay (meaning KF flights are late because it has huge debts in its books).. At about quarter to twelve, the boarding gates were opened and by about quarter past midnight, the flight was taxied to the runway. I had planned half day with my parents but could be with them for only fifteen minutes. Was really upset over this.

After moving around for about 15-20 mins, the flight was ready for take off. Lights went off and seat belts on. The plane gathered decent speed. To my understanding the front wheels had left the ground when the flight was grounded with a screeching sound and a thud (akin to the sound of a car braking at high speed). The flight came to a standstill in seconds. I almost hit the seat ahead . My heart was beating like hell and for a second I felt we are gone. The caption told us that there was a technical snag and asked us not to panic. Murmuring Hanuman Chalisa, I was just praying for things to be normal.

We returned back to the boarding gate and it was chaos all around. Some passengers took on the air hostess and few started banging the cockpit door (as if a bus has hit a pedestrian and the public wants to take the driver to task). Everyone was tensed but the way these few behaved was, I feel uncalled for. Arguing with the Airhostess who have no clue about what has happened was pointless. The pilot did what best he could have done in the circumstances and we were safe. Arguing, rather fighting with the pilot as to why he grounded the plane would have been of no avail. We are not experts in flying a plane!!!


Some started suggesting all to ask for a Five Star accommodation. These people didn’t even believe that we could fly back to Mumbai safely. I must appreciate Kingfisher
Airlines for their effort to arrange an alternate flight in just over an hour. The groundstaff did wonderfully to shift entire baggage to this alternate flight in such a short span of time. We were also put on this plane in no time. I was happy that we would be flying soon.

Well there was still some action remaining. Those few rebels who almost broke into the pilot’s cabin held the pilot and did not want him to fly the alternate plane. Though these few did not want to fly back, I could not understand why they did not want the pilot to fly. I don’t think they were so concern about the public. I feel they just wanted to be right in arguing with the pilot and proving the pilot wrong. Otherwise there was no merit in arguing with the pilot. The fact that the plane was grounded was a past about which nothing much could be done. Instead of looking ahead they just held everyone up for another hour.

The pilot somehow with the help of security guard managed to reach the new flight and was ready to fly us back. In the meanwhile I fell asleep. It was about four and a half now. I woke up to the noises of few passengers. Seemed like someone is giving a political speech. I woke up just to find those few rebels trying to convince the passengers not to fly back and that we were making a grave mistake in choosing to continue the journey. No support to the rebels this time from any passengers and finally we were ready to take off.

The flight took off safely with a huge round of applause and soon we were served dinner at about 5:30 am in the morning. I slept for an hour and landed in Mumbai safely….