Pay-Day Loans

The general perception of Indians about America is very different than reality. The ‘land of opportunities’ unfortunately, has its share of poor/struggling people. This is accentuated by the fact that most people are forced to live paycheck to paycheck. The recent recommendation of ‘Dirty Money’ show on Netflix (by a colleague of mine) brutally exposed to me the condition of nearly significant part of the American population.

Families that run out of money towards the end of the month can borrow $500 or more from these pay-day loan websites/shops. However, like the ugly concept of ‘kandhu vaddi’ (loans based on exorbitant daily rates) in Indian states, this has a horror part attached to it.

In the show, one of the borrowers borrowed $500 and expected to pay back $650. He then proceeds to pay his 4 installments of $150 expecting only a remaining balance of $50. However, he is in for a shock, as the $600 he had paid only keeps the loan amount active and has never decreased the principal amount. He ends up paying nearly $3000 for the $500 he had got in the first place. The show specifies that the ‘pay day loan’ companies often are registered to Indian tribes (Red Indians) which complicates matters as the State government does not any jurisdiction over Indian tribal land (something that bewildered me even more). The owner of one of pay-day loan company enjoys an extravagant life style and is prosecuted by the federal government for various financial crimes, pending a judgment from the supreme court.

The similarities of the brutal lending scheme in our country runs a parallel with the ‘Pay-Day’ loan scheme in no less measure. What astonished me is the fact, that educated lower-middle class people in America are caught in this debt-trap, which I would say has engulfed nearly all our farmers, forcing them to commit suicide.

All said and done, greed for money and power unfortunately plays a major role in our life throwing aside humanity and goodwill. I hope that our future generations can at least enjoy the happiness and peace that we have enjoyed through our stay on this beautiful planet.

 

Aquaponics!!

As I walked through the beautiful park/mini-forest in Merida, Mexico during my summer internship about 8 years ago, I felt a distinct connect to Mother Nature. The scent of the flowers, the hustling of the fish through the man made pond, added the perfect touch to an amazing afternoon walk (after a sumptuous lunch). It made me think of contributing something back to nature before we leave for our heavenly abode.

A year later, an article in a leading newspaper introduced me to new way of soil less farming called Aquaponics (fishing and farming). You can read a wiki on Aquaponics here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics.

The Israelis (due to lack of water in their region) have taken great interest in this type of farming. As water in becoming a scare resource in this world, I believe more people would try out this type of farming soon.

As I was wondering about the logistics of implementation of this type of farming in India, I came across another article of a sub-type of Aquaponics called Hydroponics or ‘vertical farming’ by an ex-IT engineer, who has been implementing it successfully in Goa, India - https://www.thebetterindia.com/79003/ajay-naik-goa-hydroponic-farm-software-engineer/.

Both types of farming relate to plants being grown in a PVC tube or a metal tray without exposure to ground or soil. A quick Google search of this type of farming will yield you thousands of links and study materials. Below are the advantages of Aquaponics or Hydroponics.

1. Can be set up quickly inside the city. This would help us to avoid long arduous travels to villages/sub towns to look out for a farm land.
2. Less labor intensive. As soon as the farm is set up in a room, it might require an hour’s work in the morning and evening. This might be a parallel or in-addition work to our regular day/office work.
3. No pesticides or insecticides. As there is no concept of soil, no external agents of growth are required.
4. Provides fresh vegetables for the family and can be utilized for commercial purposes, if supply exceeds home demand.
5. More Oxygen. Provides you fresh bout of oxygen in the cramped city life and for our world in general.

The cost of setting up this farm is up for discussion. It can range anywhere from 5 lakh to 50 lakh INR (500,000 to 5 million), depending on the sophistication of the equipment and rent of the room. The return on investment (from all the articles that I have read) is roughly about 2 years.

I would definitely give it a shot (perhaps a little later in life) and would encourage anyone (even with little interest in Nature) to give it try as well. Good Luck!!

 

Oh Dear Smithy!!

The ball tampering allegations have shaken the cricketing world again. Test cricket had been skating on thin ice recently, with poor stadium attendance and viewership. It did not need this issue at this moment. But is there more to it than what meets the eye?

Roll back a few years, to when Smith was not a regular in the Australian side. He was a part-time leg spinner, let alone a captaincy material. He was unlike his predecessors, Steve Waugh, Ponting or even Michael Clarke, who all had been earmarked and groomed for the captaincy role. Smith, pretty much jumped out of nowhere, into the captaincy contention, after scoring bountiful of runs.

So what does it have to do with current allegation? Well, very much. Not only did he have to score runs, but also captain a pathetic Australian team, which most of time, has only Warner and him, to make some match of any test cricket game. Adding to it, is the Cricket Australia’s expectations of their cricket team to nearly win every match to get more or better sponsorship. The immense pressure of doing all the things has taken a toll on his beleaguered body and mind.

Smithy boy has done the right thing in putting up his hand. But in this cruel world, straight trees are cut first. He will be banned for a year and perhaps shunned from any captaincy role in future. It will be tough, but not impossible, for him to make a comeback into this cut-throat world of international cricket.

Perhaps he should have gone the Indian way of doing things, blame it on someone else (Bancroft) and gone ahead to create Don Bradman-ish type of records. Alas, his ‘leadership group’ words will haunt him for the rest of his life!!

Alaipayuthe

This post of dedicated to my soulmate Ishwarya and our precious little princess (Aashritha)

“Shakti..” the scream of protagonist, Karthik (Madhavan) in the Tamil super hit movie Alaipayuthe would shred even the strongest of hearts. But it does a little more than that. The movie is a roller-coaster of emotions; displaying the beautiful journey of life and helping us cherry pick our life lessons.

The movie is one of Mani Ratnam’s magic recreated on screen (which has been quite less, off late). It shows different colors of your personality depending on your mood for the day. If you are happy, you will associate yourself more with the first half of the movie, which has the lighter and more colorful moments of life. If you are in introspecting mode, it will take you on slow ride of various things to think about for the day. If you are a bachelor, it gives you a window into the life after marriage. But it reserves the best for married couples, teaching them the beauty of patience and giving up on ego in a relationship.

This post is my take away from one of my favorite regional movies. It will also help me to revisit these life-lessons (in future), in case I lose track of it in this hectic journey of life.

1. Zero Ego Life – Easier said than done. Especially towards spouse or kids. “Vittu kuduthu poganum ” (Leave your ego and adjust). The Malayalam house owner’s words (in the movie) should keep ringing in our ear, every second of our life.
2. Keep Trying – Each relationship goes through ups and downs. We just got to keep at it. A ‘sorry’ and a ‘thank you’ does go a long way in happy and healthy relationship. Shakti and Karthik's fights arise out of a lack of these words.
3.  Work-Life Balance – Though the work pressure of Karthik (Madhavan) and Shakti (Shalini) was not explored much in the movie, spouses should never carry their work or their professional hang-over from office to home. We are a Manager/Architect/Developer/Tester only at office. At home we should be a kid playing with kids and an amazing lover to our best-half.

Life is so fickle and you never know what it throws at you in the next second or minute or day. So relax, be happy and enjoy the ride!!

Count Your Blessings!!

Recently, I came across a Facebook post titled ‘count your blessings’. It shared a very painful story of a beautiful young vibrant soul, who had passed away too soon, by her dear husband. The amount of love and care he had shared with his wife was very much visible in his long post.

The post made me think hard of our flimsy existence on this beautiful planet and it has also made me live life as if it were my last day. Gone are frustrations of endless wait in the traffic and replaced with the memories our little princess and her smile. The disappointments of life and office are hidden under the awesome hug and kiss of my beautiful amazing wife who works overtime to take care of our life. The care and encouragement of my parents and in-laws are enough to push through all difficulties in life.

This post is dedicated to Navin and his beloved wife, Merlyn. I sometimes wish life would be bed of roses with no thorns, which, however it isn’t. May her soul rest in peace!!

White Fairy!!

Friday evenings usually brings a cheer to everybody and my life is no different. I reached the Denver main bus terminal also called the “Denver Civic Center” last Fridayand stood in the long queue for my bus with my I-Phone blaring ARR music right into my system. As I casually checked the monitor for the status of my bus, I noticed a news flash right above the bus’s status on the LED board.

“Indian Gang Rape Victim dies in Singapore”

The news sent shook waves through my body and I felt an icy dagger drill right into my heart. I swallowed saliva locked in my upper throat and removed the headphones and just closed my eyes to pray for the departed soul. An African-American lady in her mid-fifties touched my shoulder and asked me the age of the victim. I replied that she was 23 years old. She just spoke “May her soul rest in Peace”, wiped a drop of tear that glistened in her eyes and walked away to her bus which had just hit the terminal.

As I dragged myself into the bus, I just could not take my mind of the news. I had followed all the news surrounding the horrible nature of the crime but had wished, prayed and hoped that the victim would make through her excruciating painful situation. I guess God had not wanted her to sufferany more and took her to be with him. The news had disturbed me as badly as the Aarushi murder case (which is still unresolved). It has been over a week since victim died at Mt Elizebeth hospital. The news has really shaken the nation and protests on the streets on the Capital have made the government sit-up and take notice.

However, there has been another silent campaign which has been running for sometime now on Facebook. Apparently it speaks about “teaching men to respect women”. It is little unfortunate that the horrifying death of girl should be used to run a campaign which points a finger at all men when in fact it should be used to amend laws to make it stricter for rapists and molesters and give more teeth to the establishment to guard the rights of women.

It could be argued that by teaching men to treat women as equal this ghastly crime along with many other crimes on women could have been prevented. However, the ghastly crime was done by perpetrators who were present on the fringe of the normal society without proper education or family to take care off. Such exceptions have taken place in the past and unfortunately and regretfully would take place in the future.

To understand the nature of these horrific crimes, it might be necessary to revisit India about 20 years ago, when men worked and brought home enough income to run the family and women ran the family efficiently. The Information Technology industry helped India leapfrog towards becoming a power to reckon with in Asia but also brought with it the opportunity for women to earn on par with men, if not more, thereby creating a discrepancy in the existing society.

However, men in India have always respected women and their rights to actively express their freedom as can be seen in women competing actively with men in all the spheres of life right from the early ages where Kings would activelyconsult the Queen on important matters of national and international issues concerning their kingdom. In some of the cases, the crimes against women are perpetuated by women themselves. So would it be fair to call for a “teaching women to respect women” campaign? Of course not, would be more of an obvious answer.

Coming back to the topic of gruesome incident, some of my observations have been recorded below.

Will the government amend laws to protect rights of women? – May be.

Will the perpetrators of the ghastly crime be hanged? – Yes

Will the News channel effectively cover other women related crime cases without jumping onto something more interesting? – No

Will such ghastly incidents not happen in future? – May be.

Will the public forget this horrific incident and move on in their life? – Yes

All said and done, this incident has caused an irreparable damage to girl’s family and to the confidence of all the girls in our country. The government must act quickly andthoughtfully, which however seems doubtful given the way so many scams keep tumbling out of its closet every now and then. So is there another solution for this problem?

In my discussion with my office colleague on this incident, she showed me an arsenal of protective stuff like pepper spray, a small knife and even a small hammer in her bag. She told me that she caries all these with her all the time wherever she goes especially during late hours. This information surprised me as Denver is supposed to be safest city in US for women. It also led to me think that in a nation supposedly where “women and men are treated as equals”; many women need such a protective strategy.

In conclusion, I believe that the human race should demand stringent laws for protection of women and their freedomoutside their home but not drown it in a cacophony of equal rights which the women already have and exercise it to full extent. It is my humble appeal to all the women folk to take measures in whichever way possible to protect themselves,even if it means curtailing hours to go out of home for it isgood to be safe, rather than sorry.

It was predicted that the world would end on 21st of December. I sorely wished it had, for we would not have to hear such cruelty meted out to our fellow citizen.

“I pray for the departed girl’s soul to rest in Peace!!”

So whom do you really TRUST??

“Kuthinathu nanbana irunthalum, sethalum sollakuudathu”

(If it is your friend who has stabbed you, you should NOT reveal it to anyone even if you die)

The above dialogue is the most impressive one which I have heard in recent times. It occurs in the climax of the movie Sundarapandian. The movie revolves around three best friends who turn into worst enemies because of a girl whom they all love, where the two friends back-stab their best friend for his close proximity to the female lead.

This dialogue opened my thoughts on issue of trust among various relationships in this confusing world. The best relationship in this world is that of friends, as we personally choose them to be a part of our wonderful lives. But as it often occurs, these chosen friends of ours do back-stab us sometimes.

The world is an ever changing place where the fortunes of individuals keep varying over time. Unfortunately, the basic nature of an individual also changes with time which results in them looking at relationships in a different light at different points of time. Another factor in the change in the relationship could be addition of another person in the straight-line relationship between two people as more people always spoil the broth.

With so much negative information, could there still be the light at the end of the tunnel?Definitely, would be an eventual or more an ideal answer. Friendship is based on trust which can be maintained by the following rules.

• Money is just a tool to lead our lives. It should never cause any friction between two good friends.
• Share your concern directly with your friend if you have any issues with him/her. Sharing any critical information with a third person will only spoil the relationship as we never know how the third person would use the information.
• “Bad people can never turn into good one while the corollary may not be entirely untrue”. If we have made a wrong choice in our selection of friends, it just best to leave and carry on with our lives. However, if we do know that our chosen friend is good at heart and may have said or done something in jest, we should definitely wait for them to come back to us.

All said and done, every minute of our golden life in precious and it is important for us to choose the people who understand us completely. With the song “Mustafa.. Mustafa..” still ringing in my ears, I truly wish all my best friends stay with me in my journey of LIFE!!