Thinkin' on your stomach.

Tomorrow I leave for Hyderabad. The yellowish rays of the sun are making me poetic as they come in distorted through the window panes (ya, right).... I feel like Jonathan Harker leaving for Castle Dracula. I've got quite a lotta things to do today.

1. Bid goodbye to my driving instructor. Tell him to get a life (and a new car).
2. Compress my stuff into the bags ( I refuse to call it packing).
3. Persuade Mom to give me money for a USB data cable (in suave lawyer fashion).
4. Hang out with the gang for a bash at Ambrosia (and return home in one piece).

There. Thats a hectic schedule considering I've been sleeping, eating and vice versa all the time. If all goes well, Objectives 3 and 4 shall be accomplished and I shall be reporting at HeadQuarters with a brief description of the event.

Aaah, i hear the instructor's foghorn blaring the romance out of the morning sun. Time to go.

If you dont have the Indian Voter's ID card in your list of "most difficult things to get", I could well safely guess that you've led an easy life. After a struggle of behemothian proportions that spanned 4 hours, I managed to get my hands on the coveted piece of laminated paper.
To the average Indian , the Voter's ID card (hereafter referred to as VoID) is as important as his life. It may give him the powerful right to vote; more primarily however, it gives him an Identity. Since the VoID also serves the purpose of identification under various schemes of the Govt. and other enterprises , one basically can't live without it. Be it to obtain driving licences, passports and other such preposterous paraphernilia or to memberships at libraries, clubs et al. This automatically makes the same, incredibly difficult to get.

My turn to collect the VoID had come yesterday. Mom had also tagged along to the Taluk Office, since she had to rectify certain errors in her existing card. She had been urging me to start early and get there quickly, so that we complete the procedure and return "within an hour" (That the gamut of events ended only as the sun was about to retire is another story). Nothing, therefore, had prepared us to meet the huge multitude of applicants present at the Office. It took me an hour peppered with consistent pushing and shoving to procure the application forms we had already filled up and submitted. They say Bureaucracy is a necessary evil, but this was ridiculous! First you fill up an application form and reserve your dates for collecting the VoID, then you arrive on the specified date only to retrieve the forms and submit it elsewhere!
The queue for the "final" submission of app. forms covered the length of the taluk office block. There were 2 lines; the female species, with their handy dandy umbrellas having formed a straight line to the app. room. The male species do not usually have anything to do with umbrellas; the most you can expect from them is a handkerchief. Consequently, this queue was pretty winding with concentrated spots near trees, Tata Sumos and other shade giving Creations of God. There were 82 men in front of me (counting courtesy a jobless character affected by the Sun). I stood rooted to a spot for 2 hours. The occasional movement in the beeline would create much flutter at the end of the queue; however, that would turn out to be someone stretching their arms. Divine Intereference came when Mom found a fellow female friend up front. The latter made some arrangements to promote me up the male order. Suddenly, we found ourselves inside the office.

Divine Interference ceased to assist. We found out that a 'proof of TC' was one among the infinite requisites to obtain a VoID. And we had none with us. The Village officer refused to include the TC no: in our Nativity Certificate without any proof. So, we had to return home...after frantic searching we found that the gas agency bill had our TC number...back to the office..everything was a blur...

Inside the office, meanwhile, there was hectic activity. The three officers posted to authorize our forms were, quite understandably, strict. As I was about to present my form, I saw one of them rejecting the same of a girl on the ground that the signatures on two places in the same form were different. The apparent "difference" (Frankly, I saw none) had occurred because the girl (now on the verge of tears), amidst the rush, had to sign one part placing the paper on the wall. Therefore, it was with considerable trepidation, I handed over mine to the Officer. Divine Interference made a timely guest re-appearance. Whatever faults present, went unnoticed. I am now an official citizen of India. With great power comes great responsibility. And all that blah. My legs ache.

Merry Christmas to all my readers!! Heck, since they come free, i'll be so generous as to extend my warm greetings to the non-readers as well..If Santa's reading this blog, i just want you to know that I've been a good boy the whole year..Please increase my blog-traffic..please..

Had a ball of a time today, what with a trip to Arjun's place, Loyola (my alma mater), spending quality and incessant-chat-ridden time with the gang and finally celebrating Ebi's B'day. The cake 'n' coke were the highlights of a sprightly day.

Well, night beckons as the festivity ends.May it be silent and holy.

Peace

The three subsequent pieces are all based on issues and events that were covered by the recent edition of the developments magazine. Unless mentioned otherwise, photos are attributed to the same.

The 3rd Homeless World Cup.

The Third Homeless World Cup was organized in Edinburgh (Scotland) recently. Besides proving to be a motivational source for the players (who usually are street vendors from all corners of the globe), the World Cup has been instrumental in trying to transcend cultural and political boundaries. The term "Third World", we realise, has been a misnomer all the while. Destitute people from Britain meet and share thoughts,opinions (everything except the football) with Namibians. The Third World is all about people rather than defined geographic locations. As mentioned earlier, for the players, the tournament has been an inspiration to struggle and succeed in life. In fact, many have received offers from professional football clubs;most of them return with lucrative sporting opportunities under the wing. Obstacles of a cultural nature still persist. The Homeless World Cup, "which sidesteps the usual sporting elite to turn the floodlights on those at the bottom of the heap", has nonetheless turned out to be a splendid idea to foster rapid development through excellent human connectivity.

Facilitating Development via Blogging.

The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development has equipped select Ethiopians in rural areas with digicams, enabling them to chronicle their life in vibrant fashion. The experiment, with an objective to motivate the people to come out with their bios (complemented by pics), is indeed a novel one. The results are quite encouraging; more and more Africans have come out of their shells to depict their lives on the Net. Not only do these tales provide exposure to the other-wise ignorant developed countries, but they also end as wholesome pre-occupation (sometimes even jobs) for the bloggers. The logs are posted in EthiopiaLives. Picture courtesy Alefu,EthiopiaLives.

Grameenphone.

Grameen Bank, the popular micro-credit provider in Bangladesh has come out with a cracker of a scheme that entails development vis-a-vis technology. Titled Grameenphone, it encourages to-be "micro-entrepreneurs" to purchase handsets (with the aid of a loan) and then rent out airtime. "When you get a mobile phone, its almost like having a card to get out of poverty in a couple of years", so says Mohammed Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank. Best news is, women have utilized the opportunity to the max. Over 100,00 'phone ladies' and counting....