A feel of capitalism

Seeing Hyderabad, India, after a gap of nearly 4 years, had certainly unsettled me for a while. Cell phones and credit cards are distributed like pamphlets. The next-door grocery stores are vanishing as super markets are coming in. The American pizza and burger stores are not only burgeoning, but also crowded to the hilt. Educated Indian youngsters no longer see waiting tables as lowly jobs. They are now proud to be a part of some global chain. The most striking sight was of hordes of people in proper formal attire, sporting company ID cards around their necks. Is this all just visible signs of a booming economy backed by a now-vibrant software industry ? Many shades of a single idea flooded me instantly: invasion of capitalism, taking on an additional identity of belonging to some global conglomerate, smelling success, a desire to be westernized, so on and so forth. Whatever be it, I only hope we consume it sparingly.

While I am talking of Hyderabad, I cannot deny similar developments in other parts of India. It's just that it's the only place I was in all the time while in India.

Dropping Knowledge

I bumped into this interesting site droppingknowledge.org, an open-source platform where the people across the globe can ask and answer quetions on subjects of their interests from pool of 25000 interconnected issues. Its worth spending a couple minutes on questions people have in their minds. Something as fundamental as "Why do educated women choose not to have children?", "why do men go to wars?", "Why me?" etc.

All of us have questions and no time to ask them, forget discussing and finding solutions. The least we could do is ask a question and let some learned men think about them.

Quotes from "The monk who sold his ferrari"

Here are couple of quotes from the book that caught my attention;

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.”

“Worry drains the mind much of it power and, sooner or later, it injures the soul”

“There are no absolutes”

“Luck is the marriage of preparation with opportunity”

“Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued. It must ensue. And it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.”

The best, of course, is the one by Bernanrd Shaw that goes like....

"Life is no brief candle for me. It’s a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to the future generations."