Catching up.

Friendship must be the only relationship in life that has no obligations. Really with family and your colleagues you are there for a reason. Whether forced or not. You be (or indeed not be) with friends because you essentially like it. It has to be fun. If it isn't, it makes no sense. That's why, catching up is nonsense, rubbish (love the way the British pronounce this word). If you feel its important to catch up, why did you let go in the first place? More often catching up is a lot of information for gossip. With the current and real friends.

Sometimes you are just not good enough.

Sometimes you are just not good enough!

Caught!

Here’s an incident that happened a few days ago.

I was driving home from a place near my house with my friend Varun being the pillion rider. I took a right turn to enter Veera Desai road.

And then a couple of cops blocked my road!

They herded me to the side of the road.

For a second I thought it may about a stunt that Varun was discussing with me. You must have seen how those Moto GP racers turn their bikes. They bend so low, so low in fact that their knees almost touch the ground. I was very near to doing it on that turn.

But I didn’t do it.

Then when I looked around it became quite clear why we were stopped. There were other riders on the sidewalk and none of them had a helmet on.

I should explain here that the vehicle I was driving was an eleven year old Bajaj Sunny Zip that belongs to my mom. Now she uses her possessions with the utmost care and that is why the peacock green coloured Sunny was still running. It is really a little more than a plank, seat and engine on a couple of wheels. But I love it.

Then the following conversation took place.

Policeman1: Beta, you should not travel without a helmet, it is risky.

Payas: Sir we were just traveling back from a shop nearby. Hence I felt that a helmet was unnecessary. (I thought- Risky, yeah right. You should have seen what I was about to do.)

Policeman1: Show me your licence. (He was in a good mood, there is always shade and a cool breeze in the place we were, but an explanation from him was unlikely.)

Payas: Here you go sir. (I gave him my beloved licence in loathe. My licence is dear to me for the following reasons:

1. It is mine.

2. I am one of the few in my age group to have a permanent licence.

3. It is for applicable for both LMV(light motor vehicle) and MCWG (motorcycle with gear)

4. It is applicable for another 20 years.

5. It was acquired with a lot of hassle and patience.

6. And it has a decent photograph of mine on it.)

Policeman1: Insurance papers of your vehicle?

Payas: I don’t have them sir.

Policeman1: Papers for the registration of your vehicle?

Payas: I don’t have them sir.

Policeman1: Papers that show that you done the P.U.C. of the vehicle?

Payas: I don’t have anything besides my licence sir. (I had lost my patience at the word ‘papers’.)

(Policeman1 confers with Policeman2)

Policeman2: Rs400 fine. (The police had lost patience with me.)

Payas: And what if I don’t have them?

Policeman2: We confiscate your licence (for you are a liability and a danger to society and I don’t know how you got the licence in the first place).

Payas: (Thinking- all this for driving a 60cc vehicle with a 3 liter fuel capacity that is slower than my bicycle?) How would I get my licence back, sir?

Policeman2: You would have to go to the R.T.O. near Andheri over bridge, pay you fine there and then you will get back you licence.

Payas: I will have to call my parents sir, will you please excuse me?

Policeman2 put my licence in his front pocket.

Policeman2: Sure son.

Varun: I have a couple of hundred bucks. Take them if you will.

Payas: Nah I have the money too. Its just better to talk to my parents, you know.

I talked to my dad and he advised my to pay the fine as getting back the licence once it was gone would mean trouble. This action suited me as well.

Payas (to Policeman3): Sir I am willing to pay the fine, may I get my licence back?

Policeman3 (to Policeman2): What are his infractions*?

(* I first came across the word ‘Infraction’ in a computer game called Need for Speed: Most Wanted. Though in the game its cool to have many many infractions.)

Policeman2: No helmet and no papers.

Policeman3: No papers at all?

Policeman2: No. None.

Policeman3 (addressing me): Then son your fine would exceed Rs 400.

Payas: How is that, sir?

Policeman3 (opening a booklet wherein they mentioned the law): Here see,

Infraction 1- Driving without a helmet.

Fine Rs. 100

Infraction 2- Driving without carrying the

Insurance papers.

Fine Rs. 300

Infraction 3- Driving without carrying the papers

that show that the P.U.C. has been

done.

Fine Rs. 500.

Then he added a couple of his own infractions.

AddedInfraction1- Your vehicle has an MH 12 number plate and it obviously has not been transferred to Mumbai.

AddedInfraction2 – Your vehicle must be more than 10 years old and hence you should get it certified.

I heard 2 more infractions.

MoralUnsaidInfraction1 – Looks too young to drive, must have acquired his licence unfairly.

MoralUnsaidInfraction2 – You are an idiot and hence our BAKRA no.1 for today.

Payas: I have just Rs 400 sir.

Policeman3: But your fine exceeds a thousand.

Payas: Please excuse me this one time sir, it won’t happen again. (I have kept my word and not driven my mom’s Sunny again). I am very sorry.

Policeman3: You are young so we will let you go this time.

He then went to the policeman in charge who was some distance away and got me a receipt.

A RECEIPT that says “Receipt for the payment to the Government”.

That receipt is posted here.

As you can see the fine is just for Rs 100.

For the lowest infraction-not wearing a helmet.

The 3 policeman pocketed the extra 300 bucks and the GOVERNMENT of INDIA just got a hundred.

I had paid my first bribe.

MORAL OF THE STORY : Wear helmets for 2 wheelers and fasten you seat belts for 4 whelers.

A confession- I really would have liked to have written this post in Marathi as that is the language this conversation took place in. But I am sadly inept in my lovely mother tongue and I hardly read, let alone write. But I intend to correct that in the future and one day I will be good in Marathi.

Oh and I really didn’t say Sir so many times.

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS OF EUROPE

Anelka steps up, walking with pressure all along, looking as if he never wanted to take it and then his penalty shot is saved by Edwin van der Sar.

Then I stood there for a moment and when I was sure of it I cried out aloud and so loudly that my throat is still sore while I am writing this.
Then I fell to the ground hard onto my knees and banged my head on the floor with full force.
Twice, and in quick succession.
It is aching like hell now.

I feel for John Terry though.
His penalty at 4-4 in the shootout could have won it for Chelsea. Their inspirational captain.
He slipped.
And sent his penalty wide off the post.
Later he was crying, crying like a baby for a long time.


And that is how cruel Football can be some times.

But Giggs scored his(that turned out to his sides last) and Christiano Ronaldo was saved of his blushes.

Number 10 for Number 11

"Giggs God 758, thank you for giving us a deserving 10th Premier League Title when the world was watching and we were praying on a stormy day at Wigan.CHAMPIONS!"

My tribute to Ryan Joseph Giggs OBE, who equaled Sir Bobby Charlton's record for number of appearances for Manchester United and scored a vital vital goal to guarantee another title.
It was a tense game, with worsening conditions and a title that seemed secure a month ago was suddenly in doubt. But Giggs came off the bench, scored and defended and then after the game lifted the trophy that WE deserved.
United were the best team who won the most games, scored the most goals and conceded the fewest.And played the best football. So relief thanks to Giggs.

The message at the top was a spontaneous one and one that I shared with some 20 people via sms.

Help or is it?

To continue my last post, I will write about an experience regarding an Engineering Drawing assignment.
There is this friend of mine, a really nice guy who has had a rough Engineering ride so far. He has 4 K.T.s and is working hard to clear them. Another fella, who has 2 is also a good friend. Now I felt really bad about them and since just feeling bad and doing nothing helps
absolutely no one, I was thinking of ways to help them. I am all right at E.D. and do like doing this subject's assignments. So I went to them and asked them whether it would help them if I made one of their drawing sheets. I told them to do the conceptual ones themselves as that would help them to develop the subject. But there were a couple of sheets that were just to be copied and I told them that I would do them for them if it would save their time.
They both said yes and I had some extra work. The sheets took me couple of hours each. I felt so full of myself. The time came when they had to get their sheets checked. Our teacher recognized my work(on his sheet). When we met later he asked me the reason of my 'social service'. I told him the reasons (pretty much the above paragraph). He heard them and told me that my friend had got 5 and 6 marks in each of the other sheets and 9 in mine. And I might have helped him in getting a little better term work but my help was hardly anything. Because he didn't know anything new. If I really wanted to help him, I should have taken out some time and taught him the concepts of the other chapters, so that he would be able to make sheets as good as mine, himself.
And I felt really bad. I knew that he was right. An old sentence came to my mind-
'You give a man a fish and he won't be hungry for a day, you teach him to fish and he will never be hungry for the rest of his life'. I had always known this. That's why I a so against giving alms to beggars. It is not the right way to help. Also it encourages beggary.
Its the same later as well I suppose. You don't help people by giving them money as effectively as you do by providing them employment. One point here though. The one who gets the easy help (cash, the fish or the drawing sheet) would probably be happier to get that easy help than doing things the hard, effective and long lasting way i.e. learning to do them. Funny short sight here again.
So I guess its important to choose the way of helping. I have promised my teacher that I will teach my friend one chapter of drawing, during our preparatory leave.

Work in the right direction

Engineering and assignments always seem go together.
Ask any engineer and he or she will recall the late nights or the early mornings that he or she must have spent completing them. Just the enormous workload and the ever approaching deadlines make you learn to live with lesser sleep. The assignments themselves are donkey work. They are totally useless. Everyone copies them and manipulates them. It just goes to show how we fail to move ahead with times. I personally would love to work in environments where my brain does the working and not just my hands. The only positive thing you can say about them is that they teach you to work hard and help you to learn manage time. But since they are so dumb, they have only encouraged me of ways of cheating them and finding as many shortcuts as possible. Also the fact that if I had put my energies and such amounts of time into something more creative and useful and thoughtful, I can guarantee you that I would have been a much better person.
So assignments are very frustrating(read pulling hair, banging heads and shouting WHY WHY frustrating). But they just have to be done. The university has alloted marks for the assignments and not submitting them might mean failing in one of the subjects. And that would mean taking the issue too far. But I hope that in the future we are given better things to do.
I have always believed that Engineers are people who, when they graduate should be able to build something. Either on their on or as a part of a group that compiles the efforts of different people to make something wonderful and constructive. We build this world. Machines(mechanical) cars(automobile) skyscrapers(civil) mobiles, robots(electronics)
and of course softwares. So if we are to have assignments, give us some that would help us build these things in the future. An assignment that gives us real satisfaction.
That would certainly help, well the nation really.

At this rate all I am doing is increasing my writing speed.