Palaila Ve - A Konkani Blog

It was a competition for turning waste into products for good use. I was determined to win it. I had genuinely thought through the final use of waste generated from an Ice Candy/Cream Factory near our home. I started collecting used Ice Candy Sticks that had been thrown around. Little did I realize that pupils in my school wanted to invest money in purchasing the raw materials and turning them into something like an handicraft. This went against the spirit of the competition. Those things did not matter. I had collected large number of Ice Candy Sticks but they were not sufficient to make a Wall Clock. I somehow hoped for a miracle at the same time kept my plans secret. There was by chance some function in the neighborhood and a large number of children were given Ice Candies. I waited for the function to get over and once all kids had left, collected the sticks. My raw material was ready. I had the Ice Candy Sticks but one more thing was missing. Fevicol Glue. I settled for no...

I was traveling in bus today and happened to see my neighbor on the next seat fiddle with his mobile. It was a Samsung touch screen but screen smaller than 4 inches. He was much younger than me and might not have married yet. His hands were rough probably due to the manual work. Being Male and single is a very tough thing to be in India. Over that if you are unemployed the situation is indescribable. Among the employed people, some may be happy in their professions while others feel frustrated with increasing anxiety and stress. Economists predict that the Indian youth population due to the demographic dividend would accumulate wealth faster in the next few decades. They also warn that if India is to realize its potential of becoming a top economy then the young need to get meaningful employment. How do we youngsters relieve the stress that comes along with work? We cling on to some or the other support in life as a stress reliever. Most have hobbies like drawing, Reading novel...

Every body does. I mean how? This illogical statement above comes from the sorry state of affairs in India where nearly 30-60% births go unregistered(worse in poorer states). I once argued with someone that i don't know when i was born because i don't remember having taken birth, least of all the date. My school teacher in my seventh year of schooling once took me aside and privately asked me my date of birth. I said some date which according to rules did not allow me to be in the seventh standard. I guess she already had my DOB in the records and wanted to just confirm it. So Devaki teacher told me to tell some random date between april to june and i did which became my official DOB about six months earlier than my real DOB. According to some reports official records of students show a majority of them got birth between april to june showing a big skew in the calendar. Sorry this problem is not going to be solved any time soon.

I again ask for leniency from readers for this write-up is not related to governance and I apologize in case it hurts anyone. Banks during the days of nationalization treated their employees as shit. We as a family of four had to endure frequent transfers. I was the latest entrant. Mr. P Chidambaram (erstwhile FM) in his speech in UP had once mentioned about the administrative policy of frequent transfers of police officers to protect criminals of a particular political party. He said “Police officers should not be treated as footballs” ki bhayi jahan chaha tabadla kar diya. Read: Chidambaram asks police chiefs to raise voice against arbitrary transfers In that context I can call both my parents as footballs. Mom had to endure the most pain as she was the one who took all responsibility to pack things and papa I think procured labour to load them on trucks. I think India still has not come home to furnished homes. The worst part of packing your boriya bistar is to decid...

My tryst with computers and video games started in my childhood. I had gone with my friends to a video parlour in the supermarket near my sheikh sarai residence in New Delhi. It was probably 1987. I was all of 8 or 9 years old. There were several game consoles. They were big. Had a television at the top for display and joysticks to move characters on screen. They made huge noises and those noises had drawn me to them when I had walked past the parlour. With my friends I learnt several things in one shot. Biggest shock was that you had to pay one rupee to play. Second, you had several chances or lives. This I learn’t later. My knowledge about money matters until that point were limited to prices of eggs (20 paisa in Karkala and 80 paisa in New Delhi) and chewing gum(25 paise medium quality,50 paise good quality as u could blow big baloons out of them) and parle-G biscuits. Parle-G biscuits were about 3.5 rupees and I had never carried such a huge sum of money. May be my parent...