Let's Clean India

On 2nd October 2014 Swachh Bharat Abhiyan was launched by the government of India. It was started by our honorable Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi at Rajghat, New Delhi. Our Prime Minister himself cleaned a road at Rajghat to start this mission. This mission is covering as many as 4041 towns to clean roads and infrastructure of the country. This mission has been undertaken with the objective of 'Clean India' by 2nd October 2019 as it is Mahatma Gandhi's 150th birthday. Our Prime Minister wants to gift 'Clean India' to Mahatma Gandhi on its 150th birthday. I think it's a great mission. We have been humiliated enough on the world level because of the dirt in our country. The best example of such humiliation is commonwealth games which were held in Delhi in 2010. Hence, I think it's time to clean our nation.

There are lots of places in India, which needs cleaning. I think the dirtiest place in any town is a railway station. People do everything on railway station. They eat, drink, sleep, urinate and take a bath at railway station. On one hand, we have the kind of people who find a dustbin at station to throw the wrapper, bottles etc. after eating and drinking. While on the other hand, we have another kind of people too who just throws wrappers and bottles on the way at the station and this kind of people are more in number compared to the earlier kind of people. Though the people have started finding a dustbin after this Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

I travel by train daily and I know the amount of filth people create at railway station. One morning a man was taking a bath and on a railway track. Railway cleaners saw him do that, but didn't say even a single word to him. He put his clothes on the pipeline and was quite enjoying his bath. A crow came, took his underwear and flew away. A crow did that work which even railway authorities were unable to do. Even a crow wants our country to be clean and supports Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Railway track is not a place to take a bath. Indian railway provides you a waiting room where you can take bath free of cost. It is better to take a bath there.

Some people are incorrigible and I feel really sad about it that people don't understand their responsibility towards our country. It's time to raise our voice against it and we have freedom to do that. If a crow can raise a voice in its own way, then why can't we? If you see any such instances on railway tracks or at the station, then inform about it to the authorities. If authority don't do anything then go to a higher authority. Do everything you can to make our country clean.

Raise your voice against it and you are not alone in it. Montu is with you guys. He was silent till now like you guys only but #AbMontuBolega. Speak up and be heard with Strepsils #AbMontuBolega and for that you can win vouchers as well. Just log on to http://www.abmontubolega.com/ and do it. You can do this on Facebook and Twitter as well. Strepsils have provided you a great platform to raise your voice. So don't be a silent spectator raise your voice for a cleaner India.

#ToiletForBabli

In India nearly half of the children face a serious health threat. Have you ever wondered why? The biggest reason for that is open defecation. Due to the lack of sanitation facilities 597 million people of India are still defecating in open. Yes, I was surprised too by seeing this number. After all, we are living in the 21st century and this number is huge. Here children don't live in a hygienic atmosphere that's why they face a serious health threat.

India is one of the youngest countries in the world and nearly 35% of our population is below the age of fifteen years. These children are the future of  our country and unfortunately future is born and brought up in unhygienic atmosphere. It is a big worry for our nation. Lack of toilets and the lack of hygiene amenities are giving rise to ailments. It is also the reason for feeble health. If the future of our nation is not healthy, then how will our nation progress? A big worry! Not only kids people of every age group are affected by open defecation. Let's see how?

Kids- we discussed above how it is harmful to them.

Youth and mid age people- lack of toilets creates unhygienic atmosphere and that unhygienic atmosphere causes lots of diseases. These diseases reduce the efficiency of work and increase their expenses of medication. Which makes life really tough for the poor people.

Old age people- old age people already have lots of issues with their health and open defecation just adds to it by giving them more health issues. Unhygienic atmosphere may also cause them some serious and fatal health issues.

The most affected by open defecation are women of our country. Open defecation doesn't only cause health issues with them, but also bring their safety under scanner. It is sad, but true that we are living in a country where some men become animals and take women for granted. So it is not really safe for the women to defecate in open. How a woman who is not allowed to show her face in front of the elders can defecate in open. It raises the questions over the dignity of women in our country.

Imagine the condition of a small girl in our country. Every morning she has to go on the search of the place where she can defecate safely as we don't have enough toilets in our country. The trouble doesn't end here health, safety and dignity issues follows her while doing that.

There is one such story of a small girl named Babli who lives in a small village in India. Babli goes in search of the toilet everyday so that she doesn't defecate in open and can keep our country clean and healthy. We can't help Babli as we don't know where is the #ToiletForBabli?

Let's come together and contribute towards this issue of our country. You can bring about the change in the lives of millions of kids, thereby showing your support for the Domex Initiative. All you need to do is “click” on the “Contribute Tab” on www.domex.in  and Domex will contribute Rs.5 on your behalf to eradicate open defecation, thereby helping kids like Babli live a dignified life.

It is a great initiative by Domex. This is the least we can do to improve someone's living and it won't take much time. Just go to the website of Domex and contribute to this cause.

#MumbaiDiary

Day 2 (Day 1 of training)

I was up early the next morning and was ready for breakfast by 8:30 a.m. Training was about to start at 10 a.m.  I was witnessing new faces in restaurant in the morning. I was having my breakfast and an old aged short man came and asked 'You got your room? Everything is comfortable na?' I nodded to him before seeing the i-card of New India on his shirt. He was the most senior memeber of support staff of the company. He had a big smile on his face and he left after I nodded him to his few more questions. Soon I was joined by my room mates and the group of Gujarat. We finished our breakfast and headed towards the banquet hall of the hotel where training was held. Being a marketing guy I was analysing marketing strategy of the hotel and the ambience is most important part of marketing as far as hotel is concerned. So here is the review on the ambience of banquet of the hotel.

As soon as I entered into the banquet hall, I thought I have entered in 20th century from 21st century. Management of the hotel still used those bulbs with yellow light which were being used in banquets in 1980s and 1990s. The lighting made the banquet look dull. Apart from light the choice of texture on wall was also very depressing. Imagine how does a room looks with dark pink and brown texture under that bulb light. It was obvious that not even a birthday party was held in that banquet hall. Only meetings and training were held there. Meeting se yaad aaya that I saw Arvind Kejriwal in the same room last day. Being the permanent member of association of last benchers I chose to sit on the last table.

Training started at 10 a.m. exactly. We welcomed DGM and and HR head of the company. DGM told us about history of the company and then HR head asked for the introduction. I was introduced to fourteen new people academically. Only I was an MBA, 13 were engineers and one guy from surendranagar was B.Com. There were four air-conditioners in the hall and all four were on me. So by the time introduction was over I was frozen. Thank god! There was a break at 11:30 a.m. and as I got up to go out I was unable to walk properly. It was my left leg's muscle. It was because of that fall at station and cooling of AC made it an ailment.

After the break it was a session of interaction in the class. The activity was like that one topic was given to the group of four and we have to discuss it for 40 minutes. After every 40 mimnutes group and topic changed. It was a great idea. It helped us to get along with each other quickly. It was great to know all of the colleagues. Basically all the people were from either Maharashtra or Gujarat. Gujarat candidates were from Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Surendranagar, Mehsana and Sidhpur. While Maharashtra candidates were from Mumbai, Kohlapur, Nasik, Pune, Sangli, Aurangabad and Jalgaon. Rest of the whole day was about interacting with each other and it was a good session.

First day of training ended at 5 p.m. and we were thinking of going out. It had rained all day long but it stopped at 4:30. We planned to go out at 6 p.m. and headed towards our respective rooms. At 5:30 p.m. it started raining again and it didn't stopped then. We decided to stay in our rooms only. We were given the time table of training in the morning and I was going through it in the evening. It was full of all the types of general insurance. The word insurance itself is a bore imagine how boring will be its types? I am kind of guy who search for funny things in every situation. So I decided in my mind that I will try my best to make these sessions fun or these sessions will be soporific.

Insurances were about to begin from day 3 of training but next day was a session of motivation, team work and customer satisfaction. So I hoped that it is not going to be that boring.

#MumbaiDiary

I got a job in New India Assurance and training was held in Mumbai. It was 17-day training from 1st september to 17th September and I had to report there on 31st August.

Day 1:

On 31st August I reached Borivali at 12:50 p.m. in Karnavati express. Company's hotel was in Andheri, so it was a mistake. I should have gone till Mumbai Central and should have come to Andheri in local but a person learns from his mistakes only. It was raining on that sunday morning and I was in the city of dreams. It was for the first time that I had to spend 17 days there. I was ready to explore the city which never sleeps.

Train dropped me at platform no. 4 and it was raining really hard. I had no protection and had two heavy bags which contained the resources for 17 days. So I just wanted to reach at hotel first before enjoying such a beautiful rain. I climbed up the wet stairs to get out of the station but while climbing down the stairs at 1st platform, I slipped and went down sliding last 10-12 steps. Couple of nails of my left foot was uprooted and I was in some serious pain. I came out of station and started finding the auto rikshaw. I was told not to give more than 150 bucks but auto driver straight away said 400. I started with 100 and noone really agreed to my price. I wasn't finding the auto rikshaw easily. After wandering for 20 minutes and seeing the rain finally I agreed to give 250 bucks to one of the auto drivers.

I thought rash auto rikshaw driving happens only in Ahmedabad but I never imagined in my dreams what's going to happen next. Auto rikshaw turned into a roller coaster and I had a 15 km roller coaster ride. That auto driver in Mumbai doesn't only broke the standards of Ahmedabad in rash driving but he took it to a next level. I finally reached the hotel safely.

I took my luggage to reception and told my name and the name of company. Receptionist checked the list of NIA and my name was not there. Could I ask for a better start? Fall-down, roller coaster ride and then missing name. What a start to the new journey! I showed the appointment letter at the reception then he alloted me the room. The room alloted to me was on 4th floor and it was shared by three. I kept my luggage in the room and was greeted by one Maharashtrian guy from Kohlapur.

On my way to Mumbai I was in touch with a guy from gujarat and he reached there before me. He was alloted the room on 5th floor. So after setting my bags in my room I went to meet him. Along with him two more people from Gujarat were there in the room. It felt like I was among my own people. We went for lunch and by then rain was stopped. It was very difficult to find good restaurant in Andheri on the first day. We settled with street food in the end. I came back and found out that third room partner was there by then. He was from Mumbai only. Lucky guy. It was time to clean that bloody shit from my fingers. I cleaned it up and rested for couple of hours.

In the evening one senior manager and HR head called all the candidates in the restaurant. It was a batch of 21+1(me) but only 13 were present there. I was bit surprised by that number. In that session everybody was introduced with place of placements and at the end of it timings of training were announced from monday. At that time my both roommates were exploring Andheri. They came back in the room after that session and we went for dinner. Then I went to bed after thinking how eventful day it was and was looking forward to training next day.

Theory of Expectations

Expectation. The most hurtful thing in this world and I am trying to write a theory on it here. First, how expectations are born? As far as I think expectations are born in every relationship you make. If you are a businessman then your expectations would be regarding goods/services and payment from debtors and creditors etc. Similarly if you are working somewhere then your expectations will be from work, salary, fellow workers etc. As a human being you would expect from family and friends(including boyfriend and girlfriend) mostly. Apart from that every Indian expect that team India will win every single match.

According to me among all those expectations what hurts the most are the expectations from family and friends. Family and friends to which you are attached to always hurt more than any other relations. People have different types of friends like by the way friends, best friends etc etc. For me friend is a one with whom you can share everything freely and can rely on. So I will talk about those kind of friends only. Friends help whenever you are in need that's when the expectations rises from them. You will always feel that I have someone who will stand by me everytime but what if the same friend just kick your ass when you need him/her the most. Oooh! that creates pain in ass.

Suppose a friend of yours who has been with you all the time all becomes a diplomat all of the sudden and kills your expectations after taking it to the top just to be in the good books of someone. It will hurt no? I am sure many of you would have gone through such instances. Ok Let's take one more example suppose there is someone really special in your life and you give him/her the utmost importance. So that person who matters the most in your life suddenly starts avoiding you. He/she start hiding out the things, lies to you every now and then and ignores you completely. How will you feel then? You might not have expected this from that person but it is happening and you can do nothing about it. It hurts like hell. I consider if you can't live upto someone's expectations then don't give birth to them.

Now family, according to me, you are incomplete without your family. Family supports in the worst times of life when noone's around. Let's take an example to understand it. Suppose, you need family to settle down in life. Here too expectations arises when someone give birth to them and someone from your family assures you that they will help you to settle down in life. After assuring you they take six months of your life and then says now we cannot help you find someone else. Yes that feeling just kills you from inside. You will not get that time back, you will not get those opportunities back which you lost in that period and you will not get that effort back which you have put in during that period. Everything will be done and dusted by then and you have to begin all over again from zero. Again I would just say that if you can't live upto someone's expectations then don't give birth to them.

After having such experiences I have made very strong walls around me. I don't really allow everyone to enter into that walls. If I allow anyone to enter then that person is really very special for me. I hope none of them will ignore or cheat me ever. I want to reach the stage where I don't need anyone's support EMOTIONALLY or otherwise to move ahead in life. I am working towards it and hopefully I will attain it soon.

The theory of expectations according to me is that if you can't live by someone's expectations then please don't give birth to them as it always hurt a lot when you kill those expectations.