When we ramble about change, these people are working hard for it.

I am one among the thousands who ramble about the evils and ills which are dragging down our country. Whenver something bad happens, we feel bad about it in our minds, some discuss it with friends and some scrabble something somewhere.

We say that in our country change is not possible. We feel that whatever we set out to do will encounter a blockade somewhere by a politician or a bureaucrat or the police or the local rowdies. We do cite many examples of persons who had tried and failed, but rarely we see people who make a good try. In more simple words, we try to shift the blame to some one.

The IT boom has indeed bought some changes, people have started to earn more at a very young age. And among them there are some who can really see the ills of the society and a few of them tend to act towards it. Thats why I believe you can see the sudden spurt in the number of Non Profit Organizations working towards the betterment of education, Bhumi, Anavi, Nanmai, Saaral, Disha, Vidial to name a few. There are many more orgainzations and each of them is trying to something from their side towards the betterment of the society.

The question which constantly arises in my mind is, "Are these organizations enough to bring a substantial change in the society?"

My answer is a strict no, the reason are,

• The rate at which these engines work certainly cannot keep in pace with the factors which detoriate the society.
• A government can easily collapse an organization like this in a matter of days.
• Education, the area which almost every organization concentrates, is one of the the pancea and not the only one.

We certainly need more organizations which jump into the political arena and fight for the injustice, evils and make sure our society head towards in the right direction. The bitter truthis these kind of organizations are very hard to find. People hesitate to enter this avenue mainly due to fear, fear of their career getting derailed, fear of something happen to themselves or their family, fear of financial insecurity and a lot more. Thogu some fears are true, some of the fears are imaginery, hypothetical. We need accept the facts humans are selfish brats.

Lot of us would love to do something of this sort but are not doing them. We may not jump into the arena, but we can atleast recognize and support people who do it, correct?

I consider myself lucky for getting in touch with such a set of people. On 8th February, 2008, I attended, Thesathirku Thool Kodu an initiative by Shanti Ashram at Coimbatore organized every year with an objective to Gather people & Organizations who are inclined towards the betterment of our society. In that meet I meet Sundharmoorthy na from Vavipalayam, near Coimbatore. Sundar na was representing Sidhanai Sirpigal, an organization which he co-founded, which had bought about significant changes in Vavipalayam. (Google it and you can see the difference they have made, BW had an article a long time back).

Nandhakumar na, representing Makkal Sakthi Iyakkam (Dr.M.S.Udhayamoorthy's organization), was one more intresting person I met there . Nandha na working in a software company had resigned his job to do research and work for the improvement of the Panchyat raj improvisation. Seeing a person who was just a few years older than me who had given up his job to pursue something which a lot of us hesitiate to dream about was something which gave me goose bumps.

Both Nandha na & Sundhar na were active at Makkal Sakthi Iyakkam, operating from the North Avenue road, Thiruvanmayur. I was infuriated by the fact that I haven't noticed it despite walking on the road several times. From June, till I came here to Delaware in Jan, I used to visit them consistently and be in touch with them regarding the happenings they are doing.

To eloborate a bit about MSI, they were an orgnization who were working towards bringing about social and political awarness to the people. They are doing a monthly magazine titled "Nambu Thambi, Nammal Mudiyum" and working different avenues like Panchyat Raj, Education, improving the Governmental activities, agriculture, Prohibition, Corruption. At MSI, I came in touch with Senthil na, Siva Ilango na, Prabhakar na, Mohan na and a lot of more other people. (Think I can devote a post to each and everyone of them).

Their commitment towards bringing a change was something which awesturck me and the results they produced were also good. They were a pretty determined lot and were working hard. I had a chance to take part in some of their discussions and found them to be very productive.

Last month, they formed a political political party called Makkal Sakthi and contested in the Bargur by election. Ilango na contested the elections and came third.

I got a mail from Senthil na, regarding the vote details.

Vote details and analysis:

DMK - 89481

DMDK - 30378

Makkal Sakthi Katchi - 1985

CPI - 1640

BJP - 1482

OTHER INDEPENDENTS IN BARGUR:
- RAJESH - 3482
( THIS IS A DMK SPONSORED CANDIDATE, WHO FOUGHT IN BASKET(KOODAI) SYMBOL WHICH IS LOOKING LIKE DMDK'S DRUM SYMBOL..HE WAS SPONSORED TO SPLIT THE VOTES OF DMDK.. OFCOURSE, THE CANDIDATE IS DMK CANDIDATE'S OWN SISTER'S SON!!!.SO THE VOTES HE GOT IS NOT REAL VOTES.. THOSE ARE VOTES THAT SUPPOSE TO GOTO TO DMDK!!!..Read about this symbol confusion @ http://thatstamil.oneindia.in/news/2009/07/15/tn-dmdk-candidate-files-case-against-basket-symbol.html)

- MAHESWARI ( KONGU YOUTH PARTY ) - 946
- PADMARAJAN - 852
- SAKTHIVEL - 694

THE RESULT SHOWS THAT

- PEOPLE ARE READY TO ACCEPT AND VOTE FOR NEW PARTY TOO, IF WE APPROACH THEM PROPERLY.. OUR DOOR TO DOOR CAMPAIGN WORKED WELL.

- ELECTION COST IS NOT A BIG DEAL. OUR TOTAL CAMPAIGN EXPENSE IS LESS THAN Rs.50,000 only. With this itself we were able to do a decent campaign.

As soon as the party launch press meet is over, we came to Bargur. So, not able to communicate effectively to all our email network. Sorry about that. As soon we return to Chennai, we will update our website and will call for a meeting to brief you about our policies and strategy. ( At present you can download the pdf version of our policy doc @http://www.makkalsakthi.net )

CHANGING 'VOTE BANK POLITICS' INTO ' POLICY BASED DEVELOPMENT POLITICS' IS A VERY BIG TASK... WE INVITE YOU TO JOIN AND SUPPORT THIS INITIATIVE.

I am really happy and proud about the way the are heading. Wishing them all the best.

Hats off to you all.

PS: For hardliners who say that Lok Paritran was not supported by people, change will not happen overnight, it will take some years. Their intentions was good, but the apporach was fatally wrong.

Don't blame the girls alone......

This is just another blabbering of mine, but think it's worth a moment to think about it.

Yesterday night was a typical bachelor's Friday for me. In the evening I played tennis for a decent amount of time, the first time in my life I served an ace, phew it is real. (After that came a game in which I had just 3 double faults). One set of friends wanted to go to Kaminey,

though I was a bit enticed to see Priyanka Chopra on the big screen, I decided not to go due to variety of reasons, budlight lime being one among them. We made some Rava Kichadi for the night and had some Breadsticks and buffalo wings from Domino's.

As it happens in the life of any bachelor, after a drink and nothing to do on a Friday night, a topic came in for vetti pongal. Sometimes these topics are of very great intellectual quality, which normally doesn't strike our mind, or things which we don't gave a damn about due to the various entertainments available around us. I love to be in discussions like this which give me an opportunity to realize how I think, what's my attitude, etc. (Provided you don't booze too much, if you do so, then it's a different story altogether).

Let me came to the topic, recently back in my company they banned wearing Casuals on Friday. The topic stated with the discussion of why did they ban the casual attire (to be read as Business casual, that's what they call so)? My friend told that one of the primary reasons is because of certain section of the girls wearing pretty indecent attire. It is certainly one of the reasons, I have seen certain girls whose costume will take your mind for a wild ride. But that doesn't rule out the boys who do wear a round neck T-Shirt with a glaring design, a jean with n number of pockets and sometimes which is torn at some places. Wearing what they like is an individual's right but when you are representing an organization there are some lines which should not be crossed, this was the reason why the Business Casuals were banned.

The argument from my friends perspective was that it was because of the Girls the Casuals were banned. My side of argument was though it was one of the primary reasons, I couldn't place the blame on them. I am articulating my argument as below,

"Every male or female (in most cases) tries not to be a common person. They want to stand out from the crowd in one way or another. Out of these some section want to attract the opposite sex, a section which will have a smile maybe not on their lips but in their hearts to see members of the opposite sex turn around and say a Phew at them. And many try to make faces turn by dressing beautifully, the problem comes when we are defining "dressing beautifully". A pretty good Churidar, or a decent top and a jean can project a girl beautiful for sure, but not everybody thinks like that. Some tend to think that dressing more sexily will make heads turn around. As everybody knows a Man's mind more easily sways and he will turn for sure.

Men don't (need) dress like that, it is not common to see men wear sleeveless tops or a top which shows their hip. The reason is a woman's mind doesn't get swayed like that, their definition of good looks is different from a man's mind. Hence men don't dress like that, had it been a case where women start liking a man showing his hip, you would see the streets swarm with guys dressed like that.

So my take is don't blame the girls alone.

PS:

1. For me beauty is something which is not determined by external looks.

2. Time to have another budlight lime, don't know I love it pretty much.