Planet Earth

The Greenwich Meridian line passes through the place called Greenwich in London, and an observatory has been built around it. This observatory is located atop a small hill in the Greenwich Park. From the top of the hill, the view of the London skyline is just incredible. I suddenly felt as though l heard voices from all over the world.

Religion: God will protect you

Atheists: You have to protect yourself

Professor: Education is the noblest of pursuits

Student: I must find my real passion

Astronomers: The answer lies beyond

A yogi: The answer lies within

Engineer: Everything has a principle

Altruists: There are no principles other than love

A father to his new born baby: I will always be by your side

A son to his dying father: I will not let you go

A new born baby: These giants are staring at me

A dying man: You go live your lives

With a new born baby, a light is born in this earth and it glows till death. Whatever the colour of the light, they all glow through day and night sending out a signal that they are living on this great planet. As holes in the floor of heaven, stars are so beautiful. These lights from Earth are way brighter and way more beautiful that shies those stars away.

Live and Let Live !

Face to Face

The floor suddenly felt too cold on my skin. There was an eerie silence surrounding me. Not able to bear the weirdness any longer, I finally opened my eyes. It was pitch dark all around and the walls bare. That was strange. I got up quick and looked all around me. The floors and the walls were plain.

There was a mirror on the wall directly across to where I was standing. I moved closer so that I can see clearly. There was a faded tube light on top of the mirror. My eyes then moved to the mirror and I was staring at myself. I checked the edges to see if there was a door but suddenly noticed that my mirror image hadn’t moved. I slightly moved away but the image didn’t budge.

I stood staring at myself trying to figure out different theories to explain what was happening. An idea at last ! I pinched myself hard and it pained pretty badly.

“I hope that it wakes you up now at least”

It was the mirror image talking. I moved away and tried to find a way of escape.

“You are stuck with me. You can take my word for it.”

“That will not stop me from trying”

“True. That is your choice. But it is my obligation to give you a heads up.”

After a while of futile search, my gaze came back to myself.

“What shall we call each other. We both cannot be Sam.”

“We both are. But you are right.”

After a bit of thinking, it said “I shall be Adaptive. You be Ruler.”

“I don’t dominate. Ruler doesn’t fit me.”

“What I was suggesting was that you are principled.”

“Whats wrong with following principles.”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. Which is why I gave you that name.”

“Hmm...”

“So what have you decided about HP?”

I was taken aback by surprise.

“How do you know?”

“I am you. Remember. So I will know what you know. My way of thinking will be different from yours. Thats all.”

“Oh. Interesting.”

“So? What decision?”

“Oh. HP? Its not my decision. It is just a guided path to destination.”

“Thats good. It will be a great start for your career.”

“Yeah. But at what cost?”

“Cost?”

“Yeah. At the cost of my morals, my principles and my values.”

“Huh ? What are you talking about?”

“My uncle, a vice president at HP, is pushing my application through. So basically, I am not winning my way through to the job. I am going into a field which has already been cleared for me. No battle, no competition, job being offered on a plate. Not based on my ability, but based on my influence. In short, this job is being given to my uncle and not to me. Not to mention about those many able people, more deserving than me who I would have kicked out just because of my fucking recommendation.”

“But you already tried for jobs on your own. For about 6-7 months right? What happened? Everywhere you went, they thrashed your application because you did not have work experience. Those idiots don’t understand a simple concept that if everyone asks for previous work experience as a prerequisite, where will you get that in the first place? Its not you, you know. Its the world that didn’t want to give you a job based on your ability and skills. This is how the world works today. The faster you accept that, the better it will be for you.”

“Just because the world works that way, that doesn’t mean that it is right, right? If I also behave like an animal what is the point in being labelled the more rational creature?”

“Why do you see as if you are letting go of your principles. Its just this one aspect. You can also see it this way that your uncle is trying to create a chance for an able and talented individual like yourself.”

“Even if I join HP, and my career goes on taking me to different places and different companies. Then one day when I look back on my career, I will find that the foundation stone was laid in a manner not so dignifiable and this will render my entire career worthless.”

“See. He just gives you a start. What you make of that chance is your own ability and your own skill. You are still building your career. You will always be the captain of your ship. Your uncle just provided you with your first boat.”

“HP is a great company and I would love to work for such an incredible company. I just don’t like the way I am entering the company. I will just be preaching about the principles by which one should live his life, but would have failed myself to live by what I say.”

“See, you cannot assign guilt to yourself for something that is beyond your control. That is just unnecessary baggage.”

Then Adaptive took out a coin from his pocket and said

“The way I figure things, we both can argue all we want, but we won’t go anywhere as we both are right. The only morality in this world is chance. Heads you win, tails I win. And then you should come to terms with which ever decision comes about. What say?”

After some thinking and checking whether it was a proper coin, I agreed. He tossed the coin. As the coin flipped above our heads, I did not know what I wanted it to show. The coin thudded to the floor and hid the heads away from our sights.

A loud sound broke through the sound barriers, and the room dissolved. I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. Looking all around, I found that I was back in my room. At that moment, drenched in sweat, the only thought that was running through my head was “Phew! I am back to reality.”

Ever Changing Menu

“Computer is an intelligent machine”. I smile at these words remembering when I first heard them in a computer class about a decade and a half ago. The smile was because I used such a mobile intelligent machine to write this article you are reading right now.

While the technology revolution is brilliant by itself, growing with such a revolution takes the experience to a whole new level. For example, I created my first email id in the year 2000 and I still remember the day when we first bought our own personal computer, back when I was in 9^th standard. Amidst strict rules of timings on when to use the computer, my brother and I still had a great time playing Dave and my parents through solitaire. Oh, and I almost forgot, there were floppy disks back then (those tiny black square things).

Then came the CD’s and when all the production houses were busy trying to reach homes through movies in 2 and 3 CD packs. I still remember that Hum Aapke Hain Kaun and Jo Jeetha Wohi Sikandhar were among the first movie CDs we bought. Then the inside of the discs turned blue with the DVDs and a DVD seemed to capture one whole movie, which seemed incredible at that time.

In my opinion, the period in college plays the transformational role in a student’s life in increasing awareness about the latest technology trends. Like, I came to know about social networking only when I joined my Engineering College. Gmail and Orkut became part of my everyday checklist, much to my parents’ dismay. But, luckily for them, I was slow to catch on to technology. I didn’t even know what a blog was till about 3 years ago. I was hesitant to open a facebook account till a year ago, and now I have about 400 friends on facebook.

I find this evolution very fascinating. Every time I log onto the internet, since my first time, I feel like I am sitting in a digitally encoded restaurant, like in the movie Matrix, and servers offering me menu cards to choose my meal from. But I am more of a standard menu fellow and take fewer chances with new items on the menu. Ever since gaining access to this wonderful world, my favourites have always been Gmail, Orkut and Facebook, although it has been a while since I tasted Orkut.

Now, being a recent graduate, on a job hunt, I find myself at the crossroads once again. As my friends have become focussed on building their jobs and careers, the number of facebook updates has fallen dramatically and my tongue now finds this meal boring. The obvious question is what I shall do next in this vast paradise called the internet, for I have to do something to keep myself active in this invisible hemisphere. I have no idea, what my new favourite is going to be, but one thing is certain, it certainly isn’t going to be my favourite forever.

Beauty

"The Gods envy us. They envy us because we are mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we are doomed." - From the movie Troy.

What is beauty? Sometimes, the simplest and the most commonly used words become hardest to define. Let’s say, beauty is something mesmerizing that will make your mind go blank, at least for a moment. In that case, the definition of beauty depends on the individual defining it.

What does beauty mean to me? I associate beauty with femininity. After women, innocence and nature take the second and the third spot respectively, in my ranking of beauty.

Life is a journey of transformation from innocence to wisdom. In its essence, innocence evokes simplicity. Innocence, in any form always brings a smile to my face, no matter what mood I am in. I would like to share with you one of my poems I had written a long time ago, one which you can relate to, with respect to our current topic.

Smile of Innocence

Went to office for the day
Was another gruelling day
Boss's pressure and inter-colleague harmony
Blame shifting and ego bias all day

At last, the clock struck seven
Picked up my bag and dashed outside
For a cup of refreshing hot tea
I stopped at the corner store

A cute little baby was crying
Mother was trying to calm him down
I stood in front of him 
and did some funny faces

The baby started smiling again
Oh God ! You made my day !
You showed me that 
Innocence still exists !

Another favourite of mine is Nature. Phew, there are no words to explain her beauty. Nature just makes you kneel before her in awe. The ability to withstand and bear such diversity makes you wonder about the extent of her resilience. In fact, I took up photography as a hobby because of her. I wanted to defeat time and retain images of her beauty forever.

In short, Beauty makes me stop counting the number of moments I survived and makes me count the moments I live.

This post has been written for the Yahoo Dove Real Beauty Contest on Indiblogger. It is a salute to the triumphant spirit of the Indian woman by Dove. To know more about Real Beauty you can visit the wonderful page hosted by Yahoo http://realbeauty.yahoo.com/ . If you like this article, do click on the following link and vote for me http://www.indiblogger.in/indivine_subcat.php?id=72&sort=latest .

What's after cricket ?

It’s the game invented by the British, but which ended up unifying India. There is really nothing to say other than the obvious phrases “Its just an amazing game” and “Cricket is a religion”. This game created legends like Sachin Tendulkar, Don Bradman and Vivian Richards. Indian team first lifted the world cup in 1983, a time when the nation saw the whole match through the All India Radio. With media and technology having leaped so far ahead, India once again won the cricket world cup in 2011 to delight its fans, who in turn took to the streets in celebration.

Over so many years, the number of cricket matches has increased substantially. This is of course a delight to the millions of viewers who follow these matches with great loyalty. Now, with the introduction of new format called the T20 (the game lasts only 20 overs as compared to the traditional formats of 50 over one dayers and test matches) and each match lasting only 4 hours, more number of matches could be arranged. This only delighted the viewers even more.

The hard truth is that it is so easy to sit and watch a match on the TV and incredibly difficult to play and perform on the field. With the number of matches going up by leaps and bounds and the introduction of new tournaments like the IPL and the Champions League, cricket players, especially the Indian cricket players are facing tight and busy schedules.

While the saying “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” is true, “All play and no work will tire Jack out” is also true. Cricket players are humans and mortals get tired. Realizing that they are not able to play full year round, priorities have shifted and now the players are more focussed on earning money for their work than representing their team and nation. And they cannot be blamed at all. If anyone has to be blamed, it is the cricket fan. These cricket fans who love sweets do not realise that they will hate sweets if they eat them every day. And the evidence for this is the falling brand value of IPL.

The realization that cricket is losing its sheen raises a vast array of questions. For one, what is the next sport that will hold the Indian nation after cricket. Another question is whether the people of India will finally start focussing on issues that actually matter, like the progress in the investigation of the 2G scam.

Extreme opinions like “the death of cricket is around the corner” are not only absurd but also impossible. Cricket is an established sport and a religion to some. The point in question is the game’s effectiveness in commanding viewership around the world, competing with football and F1 racing. Nonetheless, the current Indian generation will definitely hold Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni as one of their role models. How the next generation of Indians perceive successors of such legends remains to be seen. 

The Glass Room

Samuel had been bed ridden for the past month. His family was standing around him, struggling to smile with hopelessness in their eyes. Eyelids were pulling shut and Samuel drifted away from consciousness. It was suddenly peaceful, like flowing with a river current. Distant pulses were felt and Samuel heard shouts asking him to wake up. But he liked the river more and kept drifting away. Eventually he hit the shore and found himself in a dark place. It was pitch dark and he could not see anything.

Samuel moved ahead until he hit the wall. Passing his hand over, he found it was like glass. He followed the wall in one direction and kept going on. After a while, feeling dizzy, he sat down on the floor. Removing his shoes and placing them against the wall, he slowly went around the walls once more. Minutes passed before his legs hit the shoes. Now, Samuel was sure he was in a square shaped room with glass walls. He then went on to search the floor and found that it was made of glass too. After hours of futile searching and eventually giving up on means of escape, Samuel sat down and leaned against the wall.

He started recollecting his life on earth. The last year was the most painful. After being diagnosed with liver cancer, the chemotherapy sessions seemed endless and he hated treating hospitals as his home. The last year was very frustrating for two reasons – one being the disease itself and the other being the repercussions of diagnosis. As a positive person, weeks after diagnosis, he figured that he could live longer if he forgot he had a problem in the first place. But his wife, kids and parents went on consoling him with a look of pitiful mercy. As the news spread, more relatives and infinite consoling stretched time by so much that he wanted to die right then.

He liked it in here, this room, dark and silent, felt nice after so many moments of torture. He recalled other such moments, like the numerous fights with his wife when he couldn’t attend his own son’s graduation and his late hours at work. Suddenly he heard a sound and a clank of metal. The silence made the sound echo for a long time. Finally locating the source of sound, he found a plate of fruits. Moving aside the plate, he checked the floor for any trap doors. Finding none, he went on to enjoy his meal. He kept the clean plate near him lest the plate should disappear, he could escape too.

He picked up his thoughts from where he left off and drooled on his misfortunes. After his third meal, with three plates by his side, he remembered the first time he met Elle. He knew that she would be his wife once he laid his eyes on her that very first time. He recalled their wedding in California and their honeymoon in Austria. Then Stefan came along and Samuel still remembered those tiny fingers brushing against his rough palm. Every day that Stefan grew, Samuel grew with him. When Mathew was born five years later, the house was perfect and seemed too good a dream to live in.

Feeling the room less darker, Samuel woke up with a surprise. He told himself that this could be because his eyes have become adjusted to total darkness and then went back to his musings. As years rolled on, he remembered the day when Stefan came home with his job offer and how they all celebrated that night. Few years later, Mathew was awarded a scholarship to pursue his degree at Carnegie Melon University. The house had felt strange without all the noises. Samuel and Elle grew accustomed to the lonely house as time wore on. Then came Stefan’s wedding followed by Mathew’s six years later. A month before he was diagnosed with cancer, he had become a Granddad.

Scanning the room, Samuel was now pretty sure that the room was dimly lit. The glass panes on the floor, walls and the ceiling were radiating light. Now he could see a door in the opposite corner of the room from where he was standing. The door had no knob and the door frame was very thin, which made it impossible for him to detect the door during his initial scanning. Samuel pushed the door and a bright light hit on his face. Hearing a voice nearby, he could make out a figure standing next to him a few feet away. The figure introduced itself as Bob and handed Samuel a cooling glass.

“It will help you adjust to the bright sorroundings.”

“Where am I? And what was that room?”

“You are now in heaven. That room is called the Glass Room. It was installed a few years ago.”

“What for?”

“Mankind has advanced by leaps and bounds through the last century. While technology and everything else made life easier for man, it also reduced the effort required to earn an identity. The availability of ample free time led to increased dissatisfaction and frustration which in turn led people to focus more on their losses and their misfortunes than their gains and on their fortunes.

That room is made of special glass which echoes a soul’s feelings about his experience on earth. Once the soul starts recognising his past fortunes and starts appreciating the fact that he had lived on earth, the room will grow brighter and will reveal the door.”

“I was of the opinion that one’s actions are enough for getting an entrance pass to heaven.”

“They are very important. But tell me how will the heaven be if its full of disgruntled and dissatisfied people who are good at heart. The fuel source for the lights in heaven is the degree of contentment of the residing souls.”

“Interesting”

“Anyways, welcome to heaven and I will now give you a quick tour. After that I will take you to your friends and family.”

Looking all around like a kid in a candy store, Samuel silently followed Bob into the invisible palaces in the clouds. 

Thief in a Suit

“A Government is the most dangerous threat to man’s rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.” – Ayn Rand

Story 1:

Ram is the father of two children and husband of a beautiful wife, Janaki. This family is the perfect example of an ordinary middle class family. Ram works as a Manager in a reputed construction firm while Janaki is a loyal house wife. Working 6 hours a week and 8 hours a day, Ram earns an average of Rs. 25,000 per month and the family stays in a rented flat.

Scenario 1:

One day, a robber visits the house, sees the family asleep, but Ram and Janaki are awake. Seeing the gun pointed at them, they plead to leave the family alone and that they will give whatever he wants. The robber asks Ram to hand in all the cash and the jewellery and put them all in a bag for him. After he got what he wanted, the thief left the house. Ram reports the incident and the description of the robber to the police. Luckily, he had insured the jewellery, but the cash was not.

Answer this question: Who is the bad guy?

Scenario 2:

One day, a man knocks on the door, dressed as a courier guy. Janaki opens the door, and the man enters. Also, 5-6 people who were hiding in the staircase entered while the courier fellow had a knife pointed at Janaki. The children are scared, but obey their father’s order to stay in the room. The courier fellow introduced himself as Mohan and said that he wanted to have a chat with the couple. He reveals that he controls this area, and he takes a share from all the area residents for their own protection. Mohan tells Hari that looking at the house and the family, he assumes that Ram will be earning around 30,000 per month and that 20% (Rs. 7,500) should be given to him, first week of every month. Once Hari handed the money over, Mohan tells him that “If you go to the police, lets just say that we know where your children are studying.” All the men leave the house.

Who is the bad guy?

Scenario 3:

Ram’s salary was reduced by 10%. Though his cost to the company figure remained the same, the amount that eventually reached Ram was reduced by 10%. The company explains that they handle their employees’ income tax, so that the employees need not worry about the income tax individually.

Who is the bad guy?

Income tax is the annual charge levied on an individual’s earned income. Behind any action, there should be a motive, which in turn is powered by an idea. If we simplify the concept of “income tax”, the Government tells Ram that he owes the Government a certain percentage of his income. Just imagine, that you earn 10,000 bucks on your own, for which you sweated so hard. And then someone comes to you and says that you have to give him 10% of your salary. What would your reaction be?

There are different types of taxation and taxation is one of the primary revenue streams for the Government. For example, property tax makes sense because you are using a piece of land on earth and you have to pay for the opportunity that you are depriving the other people of owning that particular piece of land. But, no one has the right / should have the right to your hard earned money. Income tax is synonymous for daylight robbery as it rests on this illogical premise.

Understanding

There are basically three ingredients for understanding – Intelligence, Knowledge and Wisdom. Intelligence is a man’s ability to process information. Intelligence is like a machine, a machine which can be sharpened or slackened at the control of man. However, for any machine to function, it needs some input. For this particular machine, the input is called knowledge. Knowledge is awareness of the things happening around a person. Knowledge and Intelligence are like yin and yang. One is not complete without the other. The machine is useless without the input and the input is useless without a machine to process the input. The output of this machine called Intelligence is Wisdom. Wisdom is generated when one possesses information regarding the events surrounding him and the intelligence used to process the information he gathers from surroundings. However, many are not aware of the interdependency between knowledge and intelligence, in many instances; they are misunderstood to be the same. Hence, in today’s age, everyone is under the impression that reading newspapers and watching news channels helps them gather wisdom. However, those are merely channels to gather knowledge. Only when one processes the world events and interconnects them on a global scale, does he actually gain wisdom.

Wisdom is a journey rather than a one stop gas station. It requires a certain amount of silent introspection to draw upon the knowledge and to intelligently connect the dots. One’s quest for life is to move from innocence to wisdom while earning one’s living. In todays fast pace world, can one slow down to complete this journey called wisdom, remains to be seen. 

Money - The root of all good

Here is an excerpt from the novel "Atlas Shrugged" written by Ayn Rand. The following speech is conveyed by a character called Francisco D'Anconia in the novel. I thought it to be an interesting read and wanted to share it with you.

"You think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor--your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?

"Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions--and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made--before it can be looted or mooched--made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.'

"To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss--the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery--that you must offer them values, not wounds--that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade--with reason, not force, as their final arbiter--it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability--and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?

"But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality--the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.

"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth--the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money--and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.

"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another--their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

"But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich--will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt--and of his life, as he deserves.

"Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard--the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money--the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law--men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims--then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion--when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing--when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors--when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you--when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice--you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that is does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, 'Account overdrawn.'

"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world? You are.

"You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood--money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves--slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer, Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers--as industrialists.

"To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money--and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being--the self-made man--the American industrialist.

"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose--because it contains all the others--the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to makemoney.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.

"Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide-- as, I think, he will.

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out."

Quota System - An Accelerator of Brain Drain

Brain Drain, also known as “The human capital fight”, is the migration of skilled people from one country to another. This can be due to many reasons such as a nation’s political instability and lack of opportunities. One of the primary countries experiencing brain drain is India. Even though, its high population growth reduces the impact of this brain drain on the country’s economy, nevertheless, there is no denying that this is not happening. The situation in India is like that of a reservoir, with its population growth filling from the top, while the tap at the bottom is wide open draining the country of intellectual ability. Let us first observe one of the primary factors causing this brain drain in India.

Indian Government provides for a quota system where a percentage of posts are reserved in public and private educational institutions. First, let me explain the pretext presented by the Government as a justification for the reservation. For this, I feel that the following excerpt from Wikipedia best describes this situation.

“The underlying theory is that the under-representation of the identifiable groups is a legacy of the Indian caste system. After India gained independence, the Constitution of India listed some erstwhile groups as Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST). The framers of the Constitution believed that, due to the caste system, SCs and the STs were historically oppressed and denied respect and equal opportunity in Indian society and were thus under-represented in nation-building activities. The Constitution laid down 15% and 7.5% of vacancies to government aided educational institutes and for jobs in the government/public sector, as reserved quota for the SC and ST candidates respectively for a period of five years, after which the situation was to be reviewed. This period was routinely extended by the succeeding governments.

Later, reservations were introduced for other sections as well. The Supreme Court ruling that reservations cannot exceed 50% (which it judged would violate equal access guaranteed by the Constitution) has put a cap on reservations. However, there are state laws that exceed this 50% limit and these are under litigation in the Supreme Court. For example, the caste-based reservation fraction stands at 69% and is applicable to about 87% of the population in the state of Tamil Nadu.”

Usually, Indian educational institutions require a cut off mark from entrance examinations, as entry requirements. Bribing in the form of donations, “influence” factors and recommendations play a role in educational institutions bending their requirements. What is not written in the above excerpt is that under this quota system, Government actively facilitates caste differentiation. SC and ST candidates are granted admission into colleges with lower cut off marks (about 60-70%), while candidates from FC (Forward Caste) have to attain a near impossible cut off (in 90s range) to get into reputable institutions.

While this may give rise to discussions like “Government misusing power”, “Inequality disguised as Equality”, “Caste System – A guide for controlling people”, my current essay is about the basic moral principles based on the rudimentary version of right and wrong.

 A man has to earn his living and his ability is his fuel to do so. The sensible thing to do is to let man create his own world, by leaving his ability alone. The basic function of the Government is to ensure justice, i.e. by making sure that he does not disturb others and others do not disturb him. It is the highly competent men who should be encouraged to perform.

Reverting back to the issue at hand, the Tamil Nadu Government currently is encouraging incompetency under the cover that it is actually increasing equality. Let me illustrate with an example. Sam and Paul studied in the same school till the 12^th Grade in Tamil Nadu. They both want to get into an engineering college for their undergraduate degree. Sam loves studying and is eager to become a researcher in the field of Communications technology. Paul does not like reading at all, and wants to become a politician. Apparently, his dad was a politician and they insisted that he finish an undergraduate degree at least. The most popular University in Tamil Nadu are IIT, NIT and Anna University in that order. Sam unfortunately does not get the required cut off marks in the respective entrance examinations of NIT and IIT. The next most popular university is the Tamil Nadu state’s Anna University. So, Sam and Paul ended up competing among thousand others for Anna University. Sam got 96.7% while Paul secured 65.6%. The cut off marks for Anna University read something like this:

FC (Forward Caste): 98%

BC/OBC (Backward Caste): 70%

SC/ST (Scheduled Caste / Tribe): 60%

So, Sam didn’t succeed and ended up in another college, while Paul continued his Bachelor’s from Anna University. Sam secured an aggregate of 92% over 4 years of Engineering and he went on to do Masters from Carnegie Melon University and ended up settling there in the US. Paul cleared his engineering during his third attempt and went on to become a politician.

The claim of Anna University is that students like Paul should be encouraged to study further. While the initiative to spread the importance of education is noble, the act of killing competency and punishing the ones who are good because they are talented lowers all such practicing institutions to the level of barbarians in the Medieval Ages. The funniest part is that after denying the intellectuals an opportunity to function in their homeland, they turn around and say “Shame on Non Returning Indians” (NRI’s new abbreviation). Well, what do you expect? The intellectuals should suffer for their virtues ?

It isn’t obvious to the law makers that quota system is in fact a form of discrimination, and law should prohibit discriminations of any kind. But then, let’s discuss about that in another article. I feel that the entire foundation of deciding cut off marks in educational institutions like those in Tamil Nadu should be based on percentiles and percentages which measure candidate’s ability rather than their caste.

India is one of the greatest countries in the world, practicing the largest democracy and home to such cultural diversity beyond one’s imagination. Once upon a time, this was the land where knowledge flowed and universities and civilizations existed predating any historical records in existence. India won its freedom from the British rule in 1947. Has it really won freedom ? I hope to live till the day it does win its freedom from those who believe in the word “Power”.