Do not know what to name this thread???

[Kothai]

I don't know what to name this thread but suggestions are welcome.. What this post is about read on you will come to know about it..


We always hear or say these and more

1. Sports authorities in India are not capable. They are not doing good.. They are corrupt
2. Politicians in India are not capable or not good.. Utterly corrupt and spine less.. We have no words to describe them.. My blood boils at the selfishness they display..
3. General public in India are not following rules and regulations in Traffic.. Or any place that matter,.. They (sorry we) all still live like ignorant and undisciplined worse than cavemen..
4. Government officials are corrupt .. not capable ,... not good.. not eligible for the posts they hold..

but we forgot we are part of these people and population...we do not want to become a politician and do good or we do not want to be the person who asks the question .. most of us are afraid of the consequences...Iam not saying that we should be ashamed that we are afraid .. Because we can't correct them and make them do what they are supposed to do in  a single day or we can't bring abt a miracle.. But we can in some ways improve the lives and do some good in the neighborhood where we grew up.. 

don't get me wrong.. iam really tired of hearing or saying that this is not good that is not good.. This is frustrating and so on..
I would like to do something or atleast use a minute of my physical effort to do something that would make the future atleast better

For example I have been funding the hostel fee for one of the girl from my sister's school..(this girl lost both her parent but very good at studies no relatives in a position to fund her studies)
This girl studies in Chennai in a charity home (Avaiagam) . This charity home gets lots of funding since it is really famous..we don't need to fund these charity homes

instead students at the village panchayat schools.. or just remember your native villages.. ( i assume most of us are one way or the other come from a village or related to a village or small town in India)
in which think of something which you would like to improve.. or think of something which you yearned to have in your villages/town in your younger days(growing up) . .which your village still don't have..
if possible why don't you make that happen.. You would know you have done the right thing and your money didn't go waste because you can see the proof yourself and the change is at grassroots level.....

For example.. There is a person name Viajayakumar(There was a article about him in Metro plus - Hindu) until recently he was the SPD for Tamil nadu elementary school education (If I am right). he retired from this post recently.. He was a IAS officer who joined the Indian administrative services in 1974.. He is a rich person and his family was a Zamindaar for his village or something..

He had been straight forward and did lot of good things in his period as the SPD in Tamil Education board. You would n't believe he made sure that all the teachers files which were pending for so long (you wouldn't believe one retired teacher was waiting for his pension for 15 yrs) get solved as soon as possible..He moved atleast 50 or 60 files a day.. it may seem a meager number to you..but in a govt. office moving a problematic file is like hiking a mountain.. (some peon or some officer will have a grudge against some teacher , because he / she didn't pay him his cut (understand bribe)..hence he would just hide a small sheet from the particular teachers file and thats it.. this teacher cannot get his thing going until this particular person is bribed or satisfied.. some times this can be becaus of caste/reservation too.. If you are a MBC teacher and your officer is SC/ST he will not give you what is due to you.. ( iam not saying all of them are like that but you wouldn't believe there is a OC, OBC, MBC, SC/ST gang in every department and they make sure their members gets instead of the other group member.. )
ok let me get back I am trailing off...he has introduced new ways to teach the kids in the elementary schools.. with the help of National level government associations fund he brought in a new system in which all the students from 1 to 5th will be passed on to next level but he can get out of the school only after finishing the 10 grades.. basically what this means is based on the capacity of the student even a fifth std student could be in the 1 grade..

Basically each grade has few subjects with lessons which will be taught in a group .. each grp will have a grp leader. each subject will have a chart which basically has a matrix (which the students will go through as a paramapatham) .. a student will start at the 1st box where he will be taught a few things abt the lesson .. the next box he will be taught a page .. and once he reach a bee box he has a quiz abt the lesson.. once he passes the quiz he will goto the next box or else he will come back to the same lesson.. like this once he finishes the chart he would have finished the subject..
Also the charts has to be mapped by the students hence the teacher cannot manipulate and pass him to the next level.. Also the teachers are compelled to teach atleast a little bit unlike where i studied once I joined the school knowing how to do math .. how to read a word in english and so on .. but came out after 2 year just remembering the English and Tamil alphabets.. because they never taught me anything but hit me much ... except for the person who takes care of saththunavuthittam (lunch project) , taught or made us memorize the thirukkurals (tamil couplets)

Again trailed off sorry.. but this person Vijaykumar is so motivated after his retirement he went to his native village and is taking care of the goverment school in his village..


likewise.. my sister not to boast but for a example... she was initially educated in english medium (private schools) but had to come to govt school when she started her eighth grade.. form that point on her education went down hill.. at the end of her secondary education she could only get into Teachers Training Course.. after finishing  it she waited for 8 yrs to get the govt job through TRB exam.. After joining the school she made sure that her students get all the things that she was deprived of in her school..
She tried to get more students in to the school by making the parents aware of it.. you wouldn't believe getting the daily wage parents to send their students to school is a uphill task..
She with the help of the school HM got a extra building for the students (not from the govt. but the local people)..
She did a lot to that school with the help of the village and the colleagues she had for 10 yrs .. now that school became middle level school... She even got a national level award from TATA excellence in teaching.. I feel I do very very less compared to her.. but i gave money to the school for sports competition..my nephew gave money to every month rs.500 for 5 yrs - this is for a extra teacher they had to hire who is like a temporary because the school strength was more (140 students 3 teacher including HM think of it).. After 11 years she was transferred from the school because of a promotion.. but still the people there are going and fighting in the government office to get her transferred back..


At the end what I am saying we all can do one thing in our life which is good for the public.. with a selfish ness that it would bring a good future that we all are hoping for..

Because the current people are like they say in Anniyan movie they don't even realize what they are doing is mistake.. and its ok to do mistakes at some level..


PS: Moderatos pls remove this if you feel there are inappropriate contents in these posts...

[Kothai]

I really posted the above to say that we need not form an association or cahrity to do good and make an impact but to inspire if possible some of you to do what you can in your own ways.. instead of cribbing or getting frustrated..
Hope I inspired atleast 1 in 100..

[jai_in_canada]

Name this thread "The Worlds is As You Are" or "What You See is What You Get."

I agree with your core premise.  But I must say that your writing comes across like you are complaining about the complaining. 

[BSharma]

Name this thread "The Worlds is As You Are" or "What You See is What You Get."

I agree with your core premise.  But I must say that your writing comes across like you are complaining about the complaining.   :D

Many Indians love to complain about whatever is on their mind.  I do not know if this occurs in people from other countries or not, but I am guilty of complaining too much.  At every Indian party that I attend in USA, we discuss what is wrong with the world and everyone finds faults and more faults.  I guess, we feel good after all that complaining, or at least I do. 

I have heard from a few Pakistanis that they do the same at their get togethers.  Are their people from other countries indulging in complaining?

I agree with Kothai that I should do less complaining and more constructive work.   :D

[puneets]

Kothai - I'm sure many people do something or the other to help people around them. One should not jump to conclusions that people who complain don't do anything at all to help others. Sometimes it's in the nature of some people to complain about small things.

[shaili]

after 'The Argumentative Indian' by Amartya Sen....we will now have 'The Complaining Indian' 

[jayakris]

Actually we Indians are just being argumentative about the complaining Indians now, shaili .. Jay

[Kothai]

I wrote it because I was just tired of complaining and tired of hearing/reading the complaining .. also very frustrated about the inability to change the way the things are ..

Hence I wanted some kind of answer which would make me atleast feel that I am in the right direction hence outburst in the thread... I didn't meant to offend anybody


Puneets,
I didn't assume.. I have a few friends who do better job than me in this regard.. its just that I want to let it out here after reading the whole olympics section , Tennis Sania.. Leander , Bhubathi.. so on.. its just sort of came out here....

[Sandeep]

If we start doing all the works that we complain about then this life is too short for any accomplishments. We only can do limited things. Obviously if some one doesn't put the required efforts we COMPLAIN

[puneets]

There will always be people who complain, no matter what the situation. You are of the opinion that even if each person helps one person, the world will be a lot better place. There will be someone else who'll say - why not help 2 or 3 people ? If you have the means to help one person, then one more won't harm you.

This reminds me of one of the complaints that I frequently had - running marathons for raising money for charities (like ASHA etc). Please don't take this one personally because it's not aimed at you. The first time a friend of mine contacted me (some 4 yrs back) for donating to a charity for which he was running, I donated generously, but at the same time had a very basic query in my mind. I would have donated irrespective of his running 10 miles, 22 miles, or for that matter 0  miles. For me (and most of our other friends), his email asking for donations was more than enough to convince us to donate for a good cause.  It didn't make an iota of difference to me whether he had been training for 3 months or 6 months for that marathon (as far as the donation thing was concerned).  But I guess the person who finally runs, truly feels that all that training was for the purpose of raising funds. I did complain a few times that he could have raised 5 times the amount, had he spent those hundreds of hours of training on something like mowing a lawn, washing a car or giving tuition.

So basically I was complaining on a good thing that he was doing, the reason being that I was convinced that there was something better that he could have done to raise more funds. Was I justified in complaining, given the fact that I was not running a marathon ? I guess some people would have been totally pissed off by such complaints, but I personally felt that it was justified.  After that incident, a lot of people I know have run marathons (for charity) and I've donated whatever little I could as a grad student. But at the back of my mind, I still have that complaint 
 

[Peter]

"The world, a mirror?"

Kothai,  your post is a good read on life in India these days.  Poverty, corruption, greed & superficiality are all troubling.  They are here in the US as well, but on differing levels.

i left India after similar frustrations ~19 years ago.  The years have given wonderful perspective, and mellowed me out.  Have learned to let go, become less judgemental and more encouraging (read recently that 90% of all media/communications is negative).

i will leave you quotes from the beloved professor (the late Randy Pausch):

"Time is all we have.. and you may find one day that you have less than you think."

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."

"If you can dream it, you can do it."

"Give yourself permission to dream.  Fuel your kids' dreams too.  Once in a while, that might even mean letting them stay past their bedtimes."

"Complaining does not work as a strategy (we all have finite time and energy).  And it won't make us happier."