Crying Paragraph From A Novel Called ‘Services’

“Apne desh ka kuch nahi ho sakta!” (Nothing would happen to our country). The most popular, most common and proudly pronounced catch up line among almost every street corner debates. Whether they are fresh collegians, newly qualified graduates, highly skilled and established professionals or whitely attired politicians, dissatisfaction from the country comes out loud from every mouth. We certainly need to come over this lousy thought. We certainly need to look out of the window now. We need to know the facts by comparing.
I had this intense thought to address this issue while sitting in an underground train I just initiated at the same time. “I have lived in London for three years. Initially I was a foreigner for this country but now I am a lot into the things. I have earned experiences and learned the jobs. I have used from basic to leisure services in this country. I have enjoyed and I have endured. So this is what I need to address about. SERVICES! I have got mixed experiences with the service sector in United Kingdom.”
Starting with the first and essential basic service, Transport. Train service of London, London Underground as it is better known locally, is famous in all over the world. They have got these iconic red double deckers, splendid black cabs and trams as well running in all over the city. The fares of underground and buses have risen nearly 25% in only two years. But the service is getting worse every other day. Appearance is the only thing which differs from Ahmedabad’s AMTS or Mumbai’s well known BEST or Local trains. The commuters might look decent and clean in their cashmere overcoats and jackets in comparison of our ordinarily clad, smelly commuters. The allover external impression is that it is an organized transport system. Yes, we cannot deny the crystal infrastructure of the transport system. But trains remain in tunnels for minutes, buses get terminated anywhere on your way. Single cab journey can buy a second hand scooter in India which can live your purpose of commuting. Weekend refurbishments, planned engineering works, reduced services, severe delays, track replacement, signal failures, disruptions, faulty trains, unavailability of staff and replacement services are the common news at every single underground station chart. And still what you pay is 20% of your income to the dedicated underground. The rail boss stays an inch higher from the ground than everything else, “Don’t expect a seat while short journeys (30 minutes)”, he suggests. “Get off the train if you fill it is crowded”. These are the advisable answers from the responsible and authorized person of London Transport! Congestion charges soar like never before. The motorists have to pay daily congestion charge (£8 per day) if they enter in the designated area called congestion zone of the Central London. So you don’t drive and you pay for public transport and which is bone-breaking for a normal commuter. It is always frustrating for any routine commuter to be late at work or anywhere just on account of Trains and Buses. God bless Briton’s “Read anything! Read anywhere!” habit!
Let’s see what Mobile & Internet providers do. You will find the best offers, the best gadgets and many goodies when you start your services with mobile or internet. You would even get virtually free starter packs. Everything is contracted so once your contract terms are overshadowed by the wonderful offers and freebies, you would start to realize slowly that what you are into! You will surely end up paying more than you would have ever expected. The promises of relentless services would look blurred. A small or serious problem in service may make you suffer for life. To assist you with your problem, there are hundreds of outlets or so called customer service centers of the provider on streets and malls but in most cases you would get the answer, “you will have to talk with customer service advisor on phone”. A physical person cannot resolve anything in front of you, and security reasons are the explanations. More worse happens when you call to customer services. They now describe themselves as information providers only. They can empathize, they can understand your problems, they can listen to your shouting and swearing but at the end, they say, “There is nothing I really can do about it!” You would never be able to speak to the relevant person who can resolve something in real time. Everything works on automated systems, and you would be queuing up to get answered or responded. Problems do occur, technology has got flaws and it is human to accept the problems and to wait for them to get resolved. But you would be left in dark that what is going on, you will just have to wait. Most of the people get fooled with technical terms and they think there is something really serious happening, as serious as ‘launching a space shuttle’. Sales people do anything to sell a ‘bell’ to anyone and rest becomes an ordeal for the customer. We have to be extra careful to understand the services we are going hire.
However, I am back in Ahmedabad for good and I have had some interesting occurrences being a social entity, I will have my hands and mouthful for very long to keep bringing the issues in light

Sneh Bhavsar
London, July 2007

Rude ‘Crude’

Bang! You must be burning with no visible flames because of the recent fuel price hike. Worse, if your ‘Roti’ is cooked on LPG gas stoves, then each one of them is becoming more expensive. Yes, we do have many reasons to criticize the outrageous price hike which has fumed the country all over. But we could also try at least to consider a few reasons for this move from the Government. I strongly recommend reading ‘Government’ as ‘The Government of India – Our Country’ not as the UPA or Congress government. Should we know the whole perception about this dark market of fuel and gases before we really conclude anything? How much is the Government is blamable for the price hike? Think, think and think.

 

Crude oil is the most ‘wanted’ commodity in the world today. Everyday 7.6 Crore barrel (approx 1200 crore litres) of oil is consumed by the whole world. Let’s see, who the top consumers are!

 

 

Country	Oil Consumption
United States of America	200 lacs barrels per day (not surprised at all!)
China	56 lacs barrels per day
Japan	54 lacs barrel per day
India	22 lacs barrel per day

                                                                                                                                                                                               

1 barrel = 158.98 litres

 

India consumes a fair amount of oil everyday and ranks among top 10 largest consumers of oil in the world. India does not have enough oil produced from within the country itself and hence we import 70% of our consumption. Although, country’s capacity to refine the necessary oil stock is quite adequate.

 

 

India has to largely rely on the imports for oil sources as the consumption (approx 35 crore litres per day) is significantly greater than the ability of production (approx 12.7 crore litres).

 

 

Indian government officially dismantled the Administered Pricing Mechanism (APM) in 2002. APM used to regulate the flow and the prices of oil. Oil companies were told how much to sell and at what price. It means there was a less influence of international market on the fuel prices in India. But an insistence for free market pricing and foreign competition made the government to loose APM completely. But they kept an indirect eye on some key fuels to keep regulating their prices. As a result since last few years, crude price is having high correlation with the international market price. 

India’s price regulation mechanism for crude oil came to an end and it is to encourage the foreign participation in oil exploration. Now the prices are highly correlated with the international market price.

 

Let us see the domestic price graph of petrol, diesel and international price of crude oil between the years 2003 and 2008.

 

The graph clearly represents the gradual increase in prices of petrol and diesel since 2003. Of course, it shows the prices getting increased on regular basis since 2003 and that is natural. The most interesting part resides between starting 2007 and mid 2008 (now). In this one and half year crude oil prices have risen from $55.80 per barrel to $138.14 per barrel (as on 7 June 2008). It comes to 150% of hike within just 18 months. As a fact, India is least capable to anything about these prices and hence we have to absorb this increase in price somehow.

 

Let us compare the petrol and diesel prices during these 18 months of time. Petrol has gone up from Rs. 42.85 (Jan 2007) to Rs. 56.52 (June 2008) and Diesel has crossed Rs. 38 (June 2008) mark in compare to Rs. 30.25 (Jan 2007). There is a 33% and 26% of rise in petrol and diesel respectively. Doesn’t it seem that we have reasonably regulated fuel prices despite of the madness running over crude oil price?

 

 

 

The government is bearing a huge financial burden to provide uninterrupted supply of petrol, diesel and LPG to common men. Looking at the unprecedented price hike in international crude oil prices, we have got to bear a fraction of it for our own oil companies and hence for our country.

Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has released the figures and they suggest that the government and oil PSUs have been trying to moderate the impact on the common man. At current prices government will bear a financial burden of Rs. 245,000 crore in 2008-09. It would be out of scope to understand crude oil international price market at the moment. We need to be concerned with the solutions we can derive by our own efforts to deal with the increasing prices of fuels. There is not doubt that the increase of Rs. 5 per litre in petrol price is significant for a common man but for now considering this difficult situation and to act accordingly is the only choice left. It could have been worse if we look at the over all growth in crude prices internationally.

 

As one of the main reasons is that we have a greater reliance on imports for the oil and that is because we consume more. How can we contribute our bit? It is by trying to optimize our consumption of fuels, whether it’s petrol, diesel or natural gases. Broadly, any kind of energy should be saved to minimize unexpected consequences. And at last, Indian government has put some suggestions in a public advertisement, which may help us controlling our own consumptions and hence the oil situations and prices in future.

 

 

 

Conserver Energy for Brighter Future

 

• Drive at optimum speed of 45-55 kms/hr
• Maintain correct tyre pressure
• Switch off engines at traffic signals
• While driving do not drive the clutch
• Keep your vehicle engine tuned
• Light your stove only after you have all ingredients within your reach
• Pressure cooking saves fuel and time
• Use optimum quantity of water while cooking
• Use higher efficiency ‘ISI’ marked LPG stove

 

Sneh Bhavsar

Ahmedabad | 9 June 2008

SARKAR RAJ – Pre Release

Ambalal Kausty – an active, experienced and a person with involvement in political activities could not get help for his own family from the authorities. (“BJP can’t protect my family”, 25 March, Ahmedabad Mirror) 

How much assurance ‘Modi Sarkar’ provides that they would protect our families, our daughters from anti-social elements? Bugle blower of fighting terrorism, Mr. Modi & party appear to be unable of handling the social violence. It is alarming for any of us to be alert and aware of the domestic issues around our neighborhood. It is very usual to find bigheaded individuals in every locality. We ignore such things and our liberal approach towards them is often encouraging for such people, as Ambalal Kausty had their daughter-in-law left harassed by a local garage guy in Kankaria. They were even threatened and attacked with weapons. It’s a shame that even being an active member of a ruling political party Ambalal cannot get justice for his family’s honour. Why should someone even have to use his political connections to protect the women of his family? Are the law system and the police completely handicapped? Does a victim always need a political relation to get protected or to get justice? Common men’s honour and security are at stake, and have no value in this Modi’s hierarchical power planner. You will be served better, how better your relations are! This government is reaching the highest number of rapes, women assaults, child abuses and there are countless little problems around us. “The number of rape offences registered last year in Gujarat jumped from 253 in September to 336, by 2005 end.” (16 Feb 2006, Sourav Mukherjee , TNN). Our faces are still red with the shameful slap of Patan college incident. 

A few anti-socials are not just troubling some women or individuals but they are murdering the social dignity in daylight. Any development and technological industrializations are futile when they are ignoring the social security of the citizens, especially of women. No political party or no government had such an extreme dominance over the people and the social system in past, if we talk about Gujarat. We seem to be least secure with our lives, our dignity and our social disposition at present. Human lives have gone cheaper compared to material development. 

It is also not restricted to the individuals only, there are convicts who are pain for the whole locality, or to the organizations and still they roam free despite of getting charged for serious offences. They get out of jail merely within two days with their political powers. For instance, Gandhi Ashram residents suffer including some local innocent families and even some gandhians too. They are humiliated with the indecent activities around; they are abused with their belongings and bearing the damages to their reputation and businesses. Gandhi Ashram itself is being disgraced falsely by some individuals on regular basis. Ashram trustees are inactive and ignorant even about such serious tribulations in this heritage premises. Spiritless local authorities and political backing to such anti-socials work well and social integrity get killed here every other day. An immense amount of pain spills over when such things happen in a place which is the source of inspiration to non-violence, peace and humanity through the whole world. It is the place which gives Gujarat and Ahmedabad an identity through the world to feel proud of. It is up to us how much should we care about it?  

Sneh Bhavsar | 25 March 2008, Ahmedabad

Morality Declines!

Children are the real asset of the country. How much care we are taking of our national wealth? The beauty of childhood has lost over parents’ hyper-sensitive approach for their children’s success, be it in school examination or in a curriculum competition. Success at any cost! There was a time, mothers sang poems and fathers swung their children in parks. Sparing designated time to children’s study was a part of daily routine for parents. Utmost they could do is to provide extra tuitions and expecting more hard work from kids in order to reach the top results. But the appetite for success has gone beyond limits.  

Students are at immense pressure and it is more than ever. They spend hours at school, go for tuitions, spend their evening at learning swimming, cricket, singing, dancing or playing piano and then piles of home work and practice. Parents do not want their child to fall second in anything. We made up our minds before some time believing that it is a competitive age with the growing population and flooding opportunities in our country. We understood the seriousness of the contest in every domain. But we are facing moral decline against achieving success. It has been observed over the years that human morality is touching grounds in some cases, where people are vulnerable to any inhuman act. Money can buy anything and anything could be done to make money. This modern philosophy is seemingly eradicating moral values in this generation of people.  

As we have seen in recent board examinations in Gujarat, how money and power tried to rule over the ethos of education system. Last few days were completely shocking which ruined the trust over education system and teachers. We are yet to come over the pain of Patan incident. Teachers are playing evils and parents train their kids how to get success at any cost. Most basic sources of learning in a human’s preliminary life are not performing pure. Provocative media, conspiracies in public life, nudity served in news papers, pushing boundaries of entertainment world, and hardcore technological life style – all these have made our children grown before time and have left them with no ethical and disciplinary education. ‘Innocence’ has been isolated from children. Being responsible entities of the society we all – parents, teachers and all of us are accountable for it. It is in our hands, what we want our kids to be. The society expects and we are to decide between raising a clean human or encouraging corrupted success.   

Sneh

Ahmedabad | 19 March 2008

NUDE CUISINE

Your eyes may remain wide open when you would hear the children secretly, who are as little as 9 or 10. You must have also seen sharply speaking and amazingly loaded little champs on television. All thanks to our ultra metro media and news papers, who help them grow very quickly. The biggest responsibility of the media is to evaluate any kind of material before they present it to the people. They are often the carrier of social issues, trends and accurate news not stories. Let’s blame the media some other day, but have we ever raised our voices against the nudity they serve in your daily news paper? No! 

Times of India have been an authentic news group for long and now their supplementary edition Ahmedabad Mirror is at your doorsteps every morning. What you get is more than a few celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood posing in two pieces. This has become the regular content. Why would you need them at all? Before nearly 5-6 years, even adolescences used to hesitate to touch the Gujarat Samachar’s Friday supplement ‘Chitralok’ contained with full size multi-colored celebrity pictures, in presence of their parents. But at present it is unavoidable as the leading news papers print them openly and every single day. They may argue, it is the news and we want to sell. There could be news about anyone but does it really need an attached nude image only? Accepting globalization, urbanization and being open-minded is good, but does it mean we get over our inherited culture and tradition of feminine respect and ethical preservation. How many of our parents do think seriously that what they want to give their child apart from education (which is also constrained to paying fees and hiring a school van only), food, clothing and other comforts? Most of them want their children to become an engineer, a doctor or a CA – how many of us think to pour in some values, ethics, public behavior and civic responsibilities to their children? Why don’t we protest against the local media for providing such immoral material!? I think we must. We need to open our minds rather than being over-open-minded.

Civic Sense

“CIVIC SENSE” 

Reading the article “Towing men and their double standards” in Sunday Times (2 Feb 2008), Getting more attention from citizens is needed this time. It is essential to penalize the violators and keep practicing the towing of vehicles, as that is the way we have in out country. The possible solutions from traffic department are already been addressed in ‘Draw the lines…’ (21 Jan, AM) But as personnel, what can we do, seems easier and implemental. “Why is it that I am the only one who is caught?” – A thought like a gunshot appears when your vehicle is taken away from amongst other 40, parked wrongly just besides. But have you ever thought that other 40 have parked inappropriately, why shouldn’t I park mine correctly? Can we be proud of being a citizen of a developed (so called ‘metro) city but having zero civic sense!? A lot to think about! Self discipline is the word. It wouldn’t be enough to get a uniformed, well structured traffic and parking system, until we start following simple discipline ourselves. Common sense or say civic sense comes before the law practice, as the latter is an imposition and the previous is a willing exercise. 

Parking vehicles in a row, parking them straight and closer to the next vehicle, keep vehicle a little distance if the destination is already crowded, using main stand while parking your two wheelers, parking cars in sub streets rather than parking them on busy roads – these are very simple things that we can follow despite of having clear indications of parking zones. We can easily manage the space we have by keep it organized. Everything depends on a bit of thinking from you and me. Give it a thought before you do anything in public and it may bring a significant change over all.   

 Sneh B

Ahmedabad, 8 February 2008

Andrew’s Out (rageous)!

‘To err is human’. Of course, no one is perfect and flawless. It was a just another ‘very’ bad for Mr. Steve Bucknor not reaching the higher standards in cricket. Being a member of elite umpire’s panel, Steve has served the cricketing world for so long and has been fairly consistent over the years. Why nagging him for a few incidental Indian encounters!? Emotions apart, this is definitely a close call for the technologies to get involved in the game. One of the best suggestions came to light was, to provide 2 opportunities to each side to challenge umpire’s decision.  

Technically, we are done! But shouldn’t we address the ‘gentleman’ side of the game! Ponting and Symonds, they did not walk after their edge was taken clearly by the keeper. Moreover Symonds accepted, he was out and he was “lucky” not to be given. Where is the sportsman & his spirit of the game? This was a slap on human morality at first. Edged, looked back, taken & ready to go! But NO, the umpire said no. It was the outrageous moment in cricket when Symonds accepted that he was out, to corner Bucknor. I am sure he wouldn’t have any second thoughts like other Australian cricketers. “Is still cricket the gentleman’s game?”

 Sneh Bhavsar  |  Ahmedabad, 5 January 2008

‘Draw the lines and make people walk’

 “The city traffic police department is smiling its way to the bank”, said Vipul Rajput in the Ahmedabad Mirror, 18 Jan. An important issue has been encountered when it’s needed the most. Traffic chaos is getting obvious for the commercial capital. But traffic department is failing to protect the integrity of the parking laws and instead, the objective of the department has shifted; as they seem to be acting like a (money) collection agency. Traffic department rather looks happier appreciating the penalty fees as the revenue, claimed Vipul Rajput. It is turning to be a one more indecent way of generating revenue for the Government as they also sought the income by liberating the liquor prohibition.  

True, the indiscipline prevails among the city-men while driving or chucking their vehicles anywhere on the roads. People are least likely to look for a parking spot, especially for a quick stop. What is adding in their sloppy behavior is the least encouragement from the traffic department; there are a few clearly designated parking zones, but no shared education to follow the parking norms. If we review the department’s efforts, there has been an increased number of towing stations operating in the city. Moreover, consider the cost of the land hired or possessed to place the towed vehicles, the expenses for hiring or buying towing vans, the cost of employing the workforce to lift the vehicles and paying from the ordinary clerk to the duty officers – for 12 functional towing stations. Additionally, towing vans are adding turmoil to the overcrowded traffic (bearing in mind the extensive digging and the BRTS deployment through the city) and leaving the commuters at the risk too, by making frequent trips as they are trying to reach their daily target of 5000 vehicles. These money and hard work could be utilized in educating people about the new protocols of parking, for example: you cannot park in front of public garden. How much of us know about it? People are now getting furious over the haphazard abduction of their vehicles. The senior officer at Drive-In towing station kindly accepts the rage from the commuters. He added, ‘we have presented this situation to the traffic ACP Mr. N G Patel and the higher authorities, there isn’t a real implementation of parking zones.’

It is not about fingering someone but considering it as an issue which could be resolved by positive efforts. Traffic Department should designate the parking areas clearly on each road, near every shopping malls and cinemas, around public gardens and near the street markets too. In many cases people park their vehicles unknowingly. People could be advised and controlled over the parking mess in many ways, but the clear parking indications and uniform allocations would help us better to organize the space and preserve the laws. One doesn’t want to break the law intentionally but proper guidance will encourage them to keep in order. The line must be drawn somewhere, better if the traffic authorities draw some on the streets.   

Sneh Bhavsar |  Ahmedabad, 19 January 2008

Your Development Is Futile!

This take on recent polls, is my take on you and all the Gujaratis. Gujaratis are far far behind from the thought of nationalism where the nationalism is the principal and has to prevail in every member of the democracy. We are very much at the individual level; you ought to rip off that cover. Gujarat is still more of a shame to India than a proud of India in all over the world. Do not ask those money minded gujjus in London or New Jersey how they feel about the Gujarat and Modi, but asks the world. Even you can ask the other states of India. It is not the benchmark to believe that you are the best person if papa, mama and didi believe so, you should ask neighbors, friends, colleagues and even the society. Put the self on the surface – let it be commented it self. People want to look Modi, people want to dance Modi. I am heart-ripped because of this selfish, stiff and soulless mindset of Gujjus. Modi is a good leader and knows the ways to win the elections. Getting the top rank in the school examination and being a scholar are completely diverse. Being an ideal leader and winning the election to become chief minister are also completely different.  

The definition of the development is completely diverse for India in every manner. Centralization does not work for us; Distribution is the must for us. We don’t need to raise 5 malls in every area; we need to raise 5 farmers in every village. There are lots of things that I am and you are (not personally you) not enough sensible to say, but we can at least comprehend the things and not just follow the mass. Also the so called development and economic growth are coming down to Gujarat because of the individual business endeavors, outsourcing and over all India’s product dominance in the market. India is having intelligence overflow (Giddens: International social science author) and that has resulted in an economic growth and we have gone through this process over more than 40 years not just last 10 years. And the ‘malai‘ we professionals and executives are eating now, is the outcome of this stirring process of the Indian global injections. I will say hundred times – it does not coexist with development to filter the growth areas and the growing mass. If you don’t get it, I reiterate in simple words, “It is not possible to talk about hindutva & development together. Any development is futile without the intact harmony and rational environment.” It is not the development of Gujarat what you see. It will not be the Gujarat you may be wanting.   

Sneh Bhavsar

Ahmedabad, 27 December 2007