Is AFI stupid enough not to recognize Sunfeast marathon?

I am preparing in full swing for the upcoming Sunfeast Bangalore 10K marathon. I heard a buzz about Athletics Federation of India (AFI) claiming this marathon to be interfering in Indian athletes preparing for Commonwealth games.


How on earth, it can be an obstacle in the athlete's preparation? May be on moon, but not on earth. :-) In fact, it is a great opportunity for everybody to practice more and extend the limits. Let AFI not give recognition to this marathon, I am running coming Sunday with full spirit.
Run, Bangalore, Run!

Things I love about Pakistan

This sounds like an irrelevant act of ignorant writer. But, yes, you read it write, I am writing about stuffs I love about Pakistan. Before going into detail, I would prove why it is relevant to this blog. We, as a nation can't grow until we have a healthy relationship with our neighbor specially Pakistan. Even if we hated, shouted at, condemned and fought with that beautiful country, we can't deny the fact we both grew up in the same shared neighborhood. This is similar to the experience when we fight with other neighborhood children during adolescent age, follow our different career paths in teen age and meet each other at a society function in our middle age once we are settled, would you go and start that childhood fight again. No, probably you will go and shake hand with that person with whom you had a terrible fight during the time when you both were growing up.

Coming back to the topic of this blog, I like Pakistani landscapes (Valleys in Hindukus mountains are heavenly), Pakistani language (it sounds like our Punjabi), Pakistani girls (they are as beautiful as Indians), Pakistani music (we all know Sufi music, Adnan Sami, Jal band) and the list is as big we can think of us. Pakistan is as vivid, as colorful and as incredible as India.

My Dream for India series: Urban Transport

One of the fanciest dream of urban transport for me is Delhi Metro. I know this is not the best urban transport in the world but that is something we can look upto for benchmarking our progress in developing urban transport in other cities. I was astonished to see the efficiency and people's behavior at metro stations in Delhi.

Recently I read an article on Urban transport in Civil Society Magazine. It was a comprehensive analysis of various models of urban transport ranging from Metro train to Bus Rapid transport , Walking pathways to Paris' cycling system (Velib)
I dream of an Integrated system comprising of Main Metro train, feeder shuttle service running at a regular interval from various parts of city and picturesque garden pathways connecting rest of the city. I wish to see everybody using public transport when in public. Once we make city transport system very much efficient and cost-effective, then there will be only a small number of cars.

No more traffic jam, no more road-rage, friendly people at public places, happy and productive 300m urban Indians. Oh my god, मेरे भगवान ... I want to live this dream before I die.

Why do I feel privileged to be born in India?

I feel privileged that I am born and raised in India is because it's made me the fighter, not just a survivor. It kind of equips you with things. You don't necessarily need to come from a poor background. You can even come from a middle class background, but the point is that you will travel with people along your life's journey and you will hear their stories and that will enrich your life.

India is a place only for tough people. People who can't stand the fast pace of the country won't survive in it. There is a very prominent and a very strong dream every Indian sees and that dream is to rise out of all the adversity and to make it on your own, to have something that you can call your own.

To get even the smallest space in India that you can call your home is so difficult and people strive and work hard, they literally work day in and day out just to make enough money to buy a home. If you're born with that kind of a fighting nature, it'll equip you for all kinds of hardships.

You might not have a car or a motorbike and you'll be forced to travel in crowded trains. People are literally on top of the trains on the outside. That kind of situation is only meant for people who will not complain and who aren't weak. They will get on the train and then when they know their stop has come, they'll push everyone out so that they can get out of the train.

Train is just one face of that toughness required in daily life, you survive in India, you can rule the world.

How did Indian civilization survive longest in history?

India, as a cultural package is notable for its antiquity, continuity, assimilation, diversity and refinement and is wrapped in one unmistakable package: survivability. The reason of continuity in the Indian civilization in comparison to Greek, Roman or Egyptian civilizations is because the foundation principle is to sit together calmly and think deeply on the issues humans face in their life while other civilizations were busy doing warfare and conquests on neighbors. The best emperors in India were Asoka and Akbar and both expounded the path of unity in diversity and they created golden ages in India. Even in the modern world, India has never attacked another country first.

I am waiting for the day when majority population in India realizes this fact and then we will have another golden age as Indian civilization has had in past.

Why an average Indian is not a competent professional?

We can boast of our civilization as one of the ancient one. We can describe Indians as a breed of very intellectual homo sapians. But if we look around at an average Indian, he doesn't look competent enough to match with rest of the world's standard. Here, in this post, I tried to investigate into the reasons of this harsh reality of Great Indian Dream.
- One of the prime reason is 2 hundreds years of brutal British raj. This hampered psychological & physical growth of generations on Indian. I blame British for world's most brutal crime in the history.
- Even after independence, there was a lack of proper professional training for average Indian.
- There is widespread lack of self motivation towards improvement. If there is no supervisor around, we tend to be relaxed.
- Before economic upheaval, most of the jobs in India were government jobs. These jobs were of permanent types and there was not much relation between performance and promotion.
- Indians, specially in rural areas have lazy attitude.
- Widespread poorness forces people to focus on more life-concerned areas first rather then competency and professionalism.
- Insufficient Infrastructure is also a major factor. You can't expect a worker to be very productive if he reaches to work after 2hrs of traffic.

My Dream for India series

I don't want this blog to be a dump of India related news, rather I would like to see it as an emblem of years of my thoughts about my great country in my conscious and subconscious mind.
This series will comprise of all my thoughts how I dream about India of the future. Nobody can see the future, but we can work towards a better one. And the best way to predict future is to shape it. Great countries are not made in one day by handful of people, it takes lots of effort for centuries or at least decades involving millions of people, I am just doing my part.