To the innovator that brought so many smiles :: You will be missed dearly

This morning, I woke up, got ready and went to have my breakfast. There was a TV on the wall with some song playing in it. And there were scrolling lines at the bottom showing different news. I started reading those lines and the next moment was sheer pain and sorrow in the heart. The news read "Steve Jobs Dies". I was not sure for a second if I am reading it correctly. Is this real news? Just a few weeks back he stepped down being Apple CEO. How could it be so sudden? Was it known?

Since then it has been just painful feeling in the heart. Couldnt focus on breakfast at all since the mind was refusing to believe the news.

Why so much pain for a person who was not even directly related to me? The answer was very simple. You feel a lot of pain and you feel hurt when someone who in some way or the other touched your life leaves the world. And it could be complete stranger.

Steve Jobs was one person who may not have been close to us but was the one who touched everyone's lives. He touched the lives through his inspirational speech at Stanford. He touched the lives through the creations that stirred the people's imaginations. He touched the lives through the sheer fun and pleasure he gave when an iPod, iPhone or iPad landed in people's hands.

Whenever thoughts of creativity will cross our minds and the struggle between mediocrity and courage to dream will come to the fore, we will think of Steve Josb to regain our confidence in ourselves to strive for excellence.

As for me,

Whenever I will search for directions on iPhone, I will remember you
Whenever I will enter the calories I took into my iPhone app, I will remember you
Whenever I will struggle to strive for excellence, I will remember you
Whenever the desire to dream seems to be fading, I will remember you

You will always inspire us to excell through every battle in life

You will be remembered for ages to come for the joy you gave  this world through your creations

India's Second Freedom Movement

Wow!!
The whole series of  events over the past two days have indeed been jaw dropping. The way in which people have come out onto the streets and held rallies and expressed their support for Anna Hazare has been stupendous.
Definitely, the Government in its wildest dreams has never expected the situation to come this far. All it might have thought, based on its previous experience was that, if it just puts Anna and his associates behind bars for a few days, people will go back to their chores and everything will be fine. As an example, see what happened when they dealt with Ramdev.

But the Government advisors could not have been embarassed more. The credibility hit that Congress has taken is too much to repair. But the Government refuses to get the whole picture.

It refuses to accept the fact that people are frustrated way beyond threshold. All that people were waiting for was a face or a few faces that could represent them and their frustration. They had and have no hope from the government. In order to give their trust and place their confidence, all they wanted from this face or these few faces was one with simple style of living, honesty and credibility. Any person with such credential would have fit the bill. Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi definitely did fit the bill. They have carried a lot of credibility in their resumes. And when people saw this, they had no reason to mistrust them. Government refuses to get this simple fact.

Another significant motivation was the transparency of this group. No group is perfect and they will make mistakes. But this group has put in all efforts to keep the process completely transparent, most importantly the money matters. Because that is where the biggest risk of collapse of any campaign lies. Time and again the government has tried to malign the campaign by raising doubts in people's minds about the funding sources for this campaign. And in response to this silly tactics of Government it has been proved again and again how honesty and truth will always prevail. This has only consolidated and cemented the credibility of Anna's team. But Government fails to see it.

No Indian citizen who is on the streets supporting Anna and his team is blindly following. Everyone knows that the bill cannot be a perfect one. Everyone knows that we are not living in a land of Utopia. Everyone knows that this bill will have limitations. But everyone also knows that this bill is more honest bill than the one proposed by the Government. Here again the credibility comes into picture. An Indian citizen just doesnt have trust in the Government representatives drafting a bill. Its unfortunate but true. And when the government personnel unashamedly proclaim that they are the representatives of the people, the people have been laughing in their rooms. Laughing because these government personnel have been elected because there was no alternative to the citizenry. So getting elected doesnt necessarily mean people have entrusted the responsibility to represent us. And at this moment when people like Anna Hazare, Kiran Bedi or Arvind kejriwal start a campaign, people are saying "Thank God someone save me from this mess". Its the strength that we suddenly derived as a team that we were lacking in individual capacity. But the Government clearly fails to see this.

Government is clearly in a denial mode. And to help the government get out of its denial mode this revolution is going to sustain. I hope more and more folks in whom India trusts join it so that the whole India rests its weight and support from there on to ensure we see a bright, honest and prideworthy future for our next generation.

Its critical that Government gets out of its denial mode, fires its ill advisors like Kapil Sibal, shuts down its ill spokesmen like Manish Tiwari and gets down to the negotiating act : Not on where to have the fast but on how to end it and honestly work towards bringing in a strong Lokpal bill.

Interesting Article on Tagore

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1913/tagore-article.html