The Quota Question.

 Aarakshan was terrible. I can't believe that the same guy who brought us Raajneeti made this movie. The movie does raise some touchy issues. Quotas and reservations are a BIG question-mark.

• Should the BC/OBCs recieve special support from such a strongly secular and democratic nation?
• The Backward Caste people today argue that for hundreds of years they've been shunned by the Forward Castes and were not even given an equal opportunity. So today when it's their turn to do so, why are we whining?
• Should mere history and past-events serve as a medium of justification in today's highly competitive world?
• Today, it's the supposedly 'backward' people who live in palatial houses and own a number of cars and it's the 'forward' people who end up on the streets. Who really is the oppresed here?

 I feel that yes, the backward people must be brought forward, and reservations for such people should be done. HOWEVER, the people who are actually backward, those who cannot afford proper educational facilites, people who struggle to make ends meet, such people should be given reservation, not reservation on basis of birth and community. Only then would Reservations and Quotas be justified.
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Speaking of which, a very happy Independance day to all. 65 years FTW.

Street-lamp.

 The street was littered with empty soda-cans and dry leaves; it was Fall. As he walked down the pavement, a slight chill passed through his body that had nothing to do with the fiercely cold wind blowing at his face. 

It was like he was pushing a boulder, every step he took against the wind only wearied him down, and the only fear adrift in his mind was of falling back; and never ever reaching home. But languidly, deliberately, he sauntered on.

It was pitch-dark and the only illumination on the street was of the street-lamp ahead; flickering haphazardly, yet with a strange regularity that was slightly unnerving. As he moved forward, pushing away the veils of tenebrosity and silence that shrouded him, he sniffed. And the sniff was something so unnatural, something so abnormal that he felt the ambience around him change; it was no longer this indistinct alley anymore.

He stopped. His sight caught hold of the bruise he had gotten earlier that day.It seemed so much older, so much more parched. He had aged a hundred years that day. Suddenly, from nowhere, came this overwhelming wave of guilt and melancholy that threatened to engulf him, and he was scared. And then, a voice inside his head said, " Keep walking, and it will all go away."

And so he did. A river of tears trickled down his bare cheek as he did so. He stopped again and looked up to see a single ray of sunshine piercing through the valleys that lay in front of him. It was then he said, 

"I'm sorry."

And he walked on.