GOD DOES EXIST

A man went to a barbershop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed. As the barber began to work, they began to have a good conversation. They talked about so many things and various subjects. When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said: "I don't believe that God exists."

"Why do you say that?" asked the customer. "Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn't exist. Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people? Would there be abandoned children? If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain. I can't imagine a loving God who would allow all of these things."

The customer thought for a moment, but didn't respond because he didn't want to start an argument. The barber finished his job and the customer left the shop.

Just after he left the barbershop, he saw a man in the street with long, stringy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard. He looked dirty and unkempt. The customer turned back and entered the barber shop again and he said to the barber: "You know what? Barbers do not exist."

"How can you say that?" asked the surprised barber. "I am here, and I am a barber. And I just worked on you!"

"No!" the customer exclaimed. "Barbers don't exist because if they did, there would be no people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards, like that man outside."

"Ah, but barbers DO exist! That's what happens when people do not come to me."

"Exactly!" affirmed the customer. "That's the point! God, too, DOES exist! The pain and suffering happens when people do not go to Him and don't look to Him for help.

VENDOR OF HAPPINESS

The Blogworld is indeed a paradise on earth. It has such beautiful people inhabiting it, all with distinct thoughts and messages of their own, but with a single minded resolve to make this world a better place to live.

The list of such bloggers is indeed very long but some of the bloggers who touched my life here are Partha Sir of Early Days - the oldest blogger I have met is a guiding light with his rich experience in life, Dream Vendor takes us to a dream world, Ravi of Carpe Diem fame - a person full of warmth and affection makes the days great with his thoughts, Ramya the glam celeb journo with her posts depicting ground realities reminds us of our duties to this world, Swahilya – a picture pure spirituality takes us a step closer to realization of the supreme, Usha – the authoritatively positive person instill a sense of confidence on her readers and a lot of cute young chirping birds like Sophia and Shiv who instill a freshness into the mornings with their sweet poems. This list is inexhaustive so there are many more wonders whom I have missed to spell out here but nevertheless add to the richness of this unique world of connectivity.

It was indeed hard for me to remain away from this world for long having been blessed with an opportunity connected to such distinguished personalities.

My good luck pulled me back here only to find another bright shining star on the horizon. In a world where people are not even bothered to kill others to find happiness for themselves and their family, as is evident from parents buying pistols and Mercedes Benz to their minor kids who happily go on killing spree, here is PREETI – The Vendor of Happiness with a sole aim of giving happiness to others sharing bits and pieces of her own life and what she seeks in return is a priceless smile on the recipient’s face. Isn’t she an angel in this blogworld.

DEVELOPMENT PROCESS SHOULD BE A MASS MOVEMENT

This is the Golden message that Narendra Modi delivered at the Aniversary celebrations of “Tuglak” Magazine held at Chennai. Whatever may be his political status and character, he has definitely shown the right approach Development especially in large democracies like ours. I would go a step further and state that even the process of Governance should be converted into a mass movement.

As I drove through a cross-section of Chennai city the today, I found atleast half-a-dozen Fly-overs standing incomplete with either work moving very slowly or stopped completely. The common man has no knowledge as to why the work on the Fly-overs are not completed and how much of the taxpayers money has gone into the drain without any benefit. The politicians get away wasting crores of money without being accountable. On probing further we get unconvincing answers of pending land acquisitions and inter-departmental approvals.

But for the same project if the people are involved at grassroot levels from the stage of planning, all these land acquisitions and departmental approvals can be had before initiating the project. This is because the process of land acquisitions and departmental approvals etc. begins with interactions and consent of people at the grassroot level. So put the ball in their court and make them take the hard decisions of loosing a few for gaining a lot and let the government implement implement the project when complete with all inputs. In these situations, the Project once started would get completed within the stipulated time without any implementation delays. In the reverse situation of consensus not being arrived in land acquisitions and approvals, atleast there would be no waste of public money on incomplete projects and common man in that case deserves to suffer when he cannot forgo short term individual micro benefits for long term macro benefits for the society as a whole of which he is also an integral part.

Further the common man would have more knowledge how much of his tax is being used to create amenities for him and could also make him more responsible to preserve and take of the amenities so created.

One argument here would be that going to people for every project would be a time consuming process. But I feel a process being completed is better than a process lying incomplete for decades after crores of money being spent and even practically analyzing the top-down approach does not seem to complete the process any early, notwithstanding the possibility of the same lying incomplete.

The second argument would be why go to the people again when the politicians themselves are the representative of the people. We all know too well that the politicians in our country represent us only till the end of elections beyond that they represent just themselves.
Let me leave the topic of “Converting Governance into Mass movement” for the next post.

WHERE ARE THE SPARROWS

The Home Sparrows, commonly called as “Kuruvi” in Tamil is nowhere to be seen now. I saw a programme the other day in the TV where they mentioned that the population of Home Sparrows have declined by 50% worldwide in the last 25 years. It is at that point I realized I have not seen a “Kuruvi” for a long time now and felt guilty of my ignorance to the disappearance of a sweet creature that was so much part of the childhood of my generation