राम नदी काठच्या भुताची व्यथा

Original Post Date - 26 Jan 2011

आज १०-१२ वर्षे झालीत मला इथे राम नदीच्या काठी गुण्या गोविंदाने राहायला.. पण परवा ३ डिसेंबर ला माझी पुरती झोप उडाली..

जवळच एका मोठ्या साहेबांचा बंगला आहे.. बंगला कसला, महालच म्हणा कि.. साहेबांच्या मुलाची सोयरिक दिल्ली च्या मुलीशी आणि मुलीचे लग्न म्हणे एका माजी क्रिकेट पटूच्या मुलाशी जमले (कि झाले?).. असे परवा एक पत्रकार भूत सांगत होता.

असो.. आम्हाला काय त्याचे सोय-सुतक?

 पण.. ३ डिसेंबर ला कसला तरी (कदाचित आपल्या व्याह्यांना खुश करण्यासाठी)  कार्यक्रम साहेबांच्या घरी होता.. आता साहेबांचे तसे कौतुक आहेच मला.. एकतर मराठी असून धंदा करतात.. शिवाय हेलीकॉप्टर्स पण आहेत त्याच्या कडे.. (त्यांचे हेलीकॉप्टर कमळवाले, धनुष्य-बाणवाले सुद्धा सर्रास वापरतात म्हणे.. सह्याद्रीचे फोटो काढण्यासाठीच हो..)

संध्याकाळी ७ वाजता सुरु झालेला कार्यक्रम छान पैकी हेड-फोन लावावेत इतका छान कानावर पडत होता.. हळू हळू तो आदळू लागला.. पण असते एकेकाला हौस म्हणून सगळे गप्पा बसले.. डेसिबल कि काय म्हणे सगळे धाब्यावर!!

रात्र झाली.. सभ्य माणसाच्या भूतासारखे आम्ही झोपायचा प्रयत्न करू लागलो.. पण तो (कर्कश्य) आवाज काही झोपू देईना..

साडे अकरा वाजले .. मग मी १०० नंबर वर फोन केला.. शंबर नंबर वाले पण एक नंबर आहेत... म्हणाले “हो का? असा का? कुठे? मघाशी तुम्हीच फोन केलात ना?” मी म्हटले अहो नाही.. आताच फोन करतोय.. सुप्रीम कोर्टाची ऑर्डर आहे रात्री १० नंतर .. वगैरे वगैरे..

“आमचा शिपाई गेला आहे.. होईल बंद इतक्यात.. “

साडे बारा वाजता पुन्हा फोन केला.. पुन्हा तेच.. “हो का? अजून बंद नाही झाला? आमचा शिपाई गेला आहे.. होईल बंद इतक्यात..”

एक वाजून १० मिनिटे .. “हो का? अजून बंद नाही झाला? ... तुम्ही.. अच्छा तुम्ही भूताजी बोलताय ना? राम नदी च्या काठी राहता? बरोबर?”

मी वैतागून.. "साहेब, तुमच्या पुढे कॉम्प्युटर आहे आणि तुम्हाला कॉलर आयडी वरून सगळे काळात असेल हे माहीत आहे मला.. "

..नाही, तसे नाही.. आम्ही २-३ वेळा माणूस पाठवला आम्ही तरी अजून काय करणार?

थोडक्यात, माझा नाव पत्ता सांगून साहेबांनी माझा पत्ता कट केला.. तुम्ही पुन्हा फोन केलात तर तुमचे नाव,नंबर बंगल्या वाल्या साहेबांपर्यंत पोचेल..अशी गोड धमकी मला मिळाली होती..

शेवटी, रात्री २ वाजून २० मिनिटांनी बंगल्या वाल्या साहेबांना आमची दया (भूतदया) आली!!  मुन्नी बदनाम हुवी "क्ष क्ष" तेरे लिये.. अशी आरोळी माईक वरून झाली.... दुसर्या दिवशी पेपर मधून काही बातमी आली असेल.. पण काही नाही.. साहेबांनी सत्ताधारी आणि विरोधी दोन्हींना खिशात ठेवले असल्याने कोणी चकार काढला नाही..

हेच जर का माझ्या सारख्या सामान्य भुताने केले असते tar.. ४-५ सायरन वाल्या गाड्या आल्या असत्या आणि मी तुरुंगात बसलो असतो.

शेवटी, बळी तो कान पिळी!!

Engine Vs Horn

Original Post Date - 21 Jan 2011

Today, while riding on my bike on Pune road, I realized that “No matter how powerful your engine is, you must have good loud horn to move forward on Pune roads”.

How true this is in life also, isn’t it? No matter how qualified, experienced or capable you are, until you have good (self) marketing skills you can not get what you deserve.

We are living in modern world where that sharp eye sight which could see the difference between real and unreal is not there. Therefore, we need look polished to look good. J

I remember one childhood story about the old man and his sons…it was something like this..

There was a wood merchant living is small town of India. He was having good sense of which wood is good or bad and which is precious like sandalwood. Unfortunately, none of his sons were in this business. During his last days when he felt that he may not live longer, he called his sons and told that after he dies, he should be burnt using the sandalwood logs kept on the roof and remaining wood can be sold and they can share the money.

After few days when he passed away, his obedient sons went on roof and tried to find the sandalwood. They saw there are two types of woods on roof, one were in large quantity and in very raw form and another one was smaller in quantity but in finished and polished form. All of them saw each other and questioned which one is the sandalwood?

Based on the logic that our father must be keeping only better quality wood in fished format, they picked up the finished form of wood and used that for burning the merchant’s body.

After few days, they called one buyer to see the wood; he immediately found that which one is real sandalwood. They realized that how great there father was as he left tons of sandalwood for them. However, they could not fulfill his last wish.

So the moral of the story, be presentable!!

Sanjay Sonar

Income Tax

Original Post Date - 10 Jan 2011

For some reason, I hate unethical but legal practices more than illegal but ethical once.

e.g. Income tax – lol

On serious note, I have some views and counter views for paying income tax.

Views-

First of all, I wonder how come govt decides on the magic figure of 30% tax.

Here are my reasons that why I don’t deserve to pay that much tax..

• I have my own house purchased from private builder (I have no flat in Adarsh society or similar, I swear!). Neither my house is from MHADA, CISCO or HUDCO.
• I have taken loan from bank, with market interest rate and I am paying that back also.
• I purchase drinking water (cane) and utility water (tanker).
• My family is using private hospitals for any health problems. We have not seen any govt hospital till date (luckily!).
• My kids are going to private schools and no subsidy in fees.
• I am paying toll on almost each and every good road when I use it.
• Government is no longer giving me high subsidy in Petrol and LPG.
• I am paying electricity bills with highest per unit rate as I use it lot! (Thanks to load shedding which try to save some units)
• I am paying for parking on road, malls, multiplexes
• I am not entitled to use “rationed” food as I am not BPL
• I have private security at my complex.
• I am paying fat ticket prices for travelling as I go by private travels.

So, all in all, other than securing borders and keeping law and order in city, I rarely get any returns out of my 30%. I should pay taxes but not that much.

And again, why 30%, why government doesn’t make it 50% or 70%? Who will stop them?

Counter view –

I just returned from my college’s Alumni function. It is fully government aided college in Mumbai. Now even those fees have increased, but during my time, I took education with very less than private (even art and science) colleges.

I have used (and misused) pure corporation water for many years.

If not me, but my many poor countrymen need government hospitals.

If not my children, but next generation of my nation need education.

May be I don’t need MHADA house, but my dear solders and policemen need it.

With this, I accept that I must pay taxes but I wish that those are fully utilized for my nation and should not go to few people’s pocket.

May be this 30% will come down to 10%, when all my countrymen are self sufficient and are eligible to pay taxes. And more importantly all shop owners, businessmen, doctors, lawyers, film actors, sports persons CAs pay correct taxes.

Jai-Hind!!

Sanjay Sonar

Life after 3 Idiots

Original Post Date - 9 March 2010

The day I saw 3 Idiots (3I), I was charged about talking about it with my friends, especially hostel friends, engineering college buddies. At the same time, there was some negative feeling about something.. which I found later.

3I is “juice” of life in engineering college or any professional education for that matter. I liked the way movie give impotence to “learning/innovation” than “scoring”. I like the way “ratta” man, Chatur is projected. However, there is some mismatch shown like if the person checking the paper expects the “standard/typical” bookish answers, then how Rancho can still be a topper. Well, forgiven!!

Fortunately, I was lucky to get good teachers in my college who never taught us for scores. However, one thing which I hated in college was “submission”.

I mean, why the hale I should write the same thing again, if it’s just copy and paste. (Chatur of our class used to call it “Makkhi to Makkhi” copy, which means, if there is makkhi dead (fly) on the original paper, then you also put dead makkhi on the same line)

I remember one big incident of this Makkhi to Makkhi submission. Four of us were seating for Microprocessor viva (orals). Our professor opened one journal (I think, it was Raj), then asked all of us to open our journal (same page). He pointed to the line where all of us wrote word “mercury”. He asked asking one by one to all, why mercury is used here? First was Preeti, then Sonali, Me, and then Raj. We started thinking and talking like.. “It’s like.. you know.. we .. actually.. not sure..”. Raj was smart (I hope still he is). He started explaining, how mercury help ..it’s due to it’s temperature.. Expansion.. blah-blah blah..

Then peacefully, our dear professor said “Guys this is Microprocessor, why will you use Mercury here.. the correct word should be “Memory”. Lol

We all wanted to roll of the floor to laugh, but we had to control. We (the entire class) had copied word Memory as Mercury. Wow!! As if it was not enough, we were trying to justify that why mercury is used in Microprocessor

Couple of parts, I didn’t liked about the 3I are as follows.

Well, we have seen in Munnabhai that how medical college ragging is turned away by sanjubaba. It was funny! Same thing, 3Is trying to show, again as part of fun. But the question is “Is ragging really funny”. I was lucky to get escape from it as I was in to direct second year. However, I have witnessed it in our hostel. It’s terrible who undergoes it. I am not saying that ragging will impact the student and they will take life. That is still there, but it’s hardly 1-2% of victims. I am more concern about the rest who are survived. Many of them are ones who are taking ragging (kind of revenge) next year. Ragging is not just punishment or humiliation. It makes you insensitive. I have seen pupil who are very sincere and dedicated before ragging and all of sudden there angle to look at the life changes. The think that “goodness” is your “weakness”. It kills the sensitive caring person and then entire life he becomes ruthless. I am not saying all of they become like that, but yes many of them can become like it.

Showing ragging is no longer funny to me. Let’s reject it!!

Second thing in this movie is vey popular among teenagers is “I quit”. Stylist sue side note, Isn’t it? Many have committed and more are in pipeline (Thanks to Media). What was need of showing such a negative part of the life which so much glamour? Poor students don’t even know what strength they have. They think that filing patents on our name and becoming topper like Rancho only is “winning”. Raju you could have shown “hero” as loser. That would have saved many real life “heros”.

Well, I have my own opinions about how life is more beautiful. I will write about it later.

All in all, 3 idiots was a good to watch. It was certainly more that a movie. Otherwise, I would have not written this much if it was “kuch kuch hota hai”.

Sanjay Sonar

Why Cricket?

Original Post date - 4 March 2011

I sometime thinks that why any other sports hero is not as popular as Sachin? E.g. Vishwanath Anand or Pace is also very good in their games. Then why only cricket?

Why we get involved so much in this sport?

I have my own thoughts on “Why cricket?” I have found top five reasons for why cricket is popular in India? This is nothing to take away from our national sport, Hockey.

1. We are lazy.. Yes, sounds strange but we (Indian) are little lazy. Not that we don’t do the hard work. We do. But we don’t race with time. If we plot graph of progress (or profit) we tend to put efforts or inputs on X axis rather than ‘time’. We do not like to measure anything against time. Many of us must be feeling weird when Match referee panelizes team’s captain for slow over rate.

Coming to the point, many sports like hockey or soccer are ‘time bound’ sports. First half of 35 minutes and next half of another 35. Whereas cricket is based on “deliveries” bowled by bowling team. Runs are on Y axis and overs are  on X axis. We can stop the game at any logical point, say 34.5 overs, 230 runs. After each delivery there is a gap where we can relax (there you go!), think and plan.

2. We love mathematics -  This one everybody will agree that we do lot of calculations. Cricket is the sport where we can analyze the scorecard after years also. Compared to other sports, we can not play graphs like what was calculation when 6^th wicket was down. How many balls were in hand? E.g. If you want to see match history of hockey or tennis then it will be a text commentary that at so and so minute India was in control of game. But there is no “scorecard” as we have in cricket. I just love calculation made when rain comes – D/L method. Wow!

3. Cricket is talked more than played – We just love talking about cricket. I personally don’t play cricket but I follow the game more. And see now, I am not just talking but writing about it. No other sport gives us that much “time” to think, about “what should have been done?”. People have authority to talk about cricket. Typical line talked in Mumbai trains is “lefty right combination rahana mangta hai..”. No one says that Sania should have played that shot like this.

4. We need heros but still we are patriotic – Our history is making someone larger than life, follow him, worship him and try to become like him. Be it Kings, Superstars, Political Heros.. we always need someone whose pictures can be posted on our walls. Other team sports do not indentify or separate out individual performance as cricket can do. Who took wicket or catch? Who scored more runs? In hockey we can say who made how many goals, but how many such goals can one player make in a game?

Compare to other individual sports, like tennis or chess, we have heros there but that’s just not enough as there is no one to compare with. Sachin or Kambli, Yuvi or Kaif, Nehra or Zaheer, Kumble or Raju? These questions won’t come in those sports as there is no other achiever. Additionally, we love someone playing for nation. We feel it terrific when India Won banner comes on a big ground (which is true for Hockey also).

I saw more Indian flags on road on March 1, 2003 when Sachin scored 98 runs to beat Pak in 2003 World cup game.

5. Commercial Break – As I talked about it earlier, we get a logical break after each delivery and much bigger break when over changes. I think, this is the most influencing factor commercially for cricket. Any other sport doesn’t give this much needed liberty to TV channel to show commercials when the game is at its peak. Can you imagine, commercial break just before goal in soccer game. Also, we have drinks break, wickets, injuries, sight-screen disturbance, bad weather, bad light and many more reasons for taking “a short commercial” break.

Jagmohan Dalmiya, Lalit Modi, Bindra, Niranjan Shah all these are by-products of this commercial break. May be to promote Hockey, Suresh Kalmadi will come with new format of game where there will one break after every 10 minutes of game.

Sanjay Sonar

Sachin.. Sach an inning!!

Original Post Date - 4 March 2010

During “Ramayana” period (not Satayug, I am talking about Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayana), when most of middle class was not having TV, there was Reliance world cup 1987. This is when, we (our generation) started understanding and enjoying international cricket.

After just a year, we have got new face of cricket, named Sachin Tendular. Until then, century in one day cricket was very rare. I remember Gavaskar hitting his first (and last) century in Nagpur where Chetan Sharma got his first Hat-trick against NZ.

BCCI was not “super power”ed by Dollar-miya by that time.

I always compare Sachin with Amitabh for some reasons. One of that is they started their popularity among younger generation first. Amitabh’s movies were popular due to his action and comedy among us at very young age. Similarly, we started liking Sachin as he was a stock player. He used to hit back-to-back boundaries to any good bowler. That was the time, when ODIs started becoming neck-to-neck games. Each ball wasted becoming costly. We used to call dot ball as “maiden” ball as we call “maiden over” for run-less over. I used write ball-by-ball scorecard on last page of my college note books.

Rest all is well known to us that how Sachin was promoted to attack first 15 overs and how ODI became high profile sport with lot of money involved in it.

Then and now, every time Sachin hitting runs we feel as if our “bank balance” is increasing by that many. Each century scored by him makes our day. When he gets out cheaply, we show our angers to someone else for no reason.

Personally, I lose 50% of interest in the match when Sachin is not playing. When I check score, I check how many Sachin scored before checking if India won or lost. As many said, if cricket is region then Sachin is god of cricket. Many players came and will come, but Sachin will remain Sachin!!

You know what, I sometime thinks that why any other sports hero is not as popular as Sachin? E.g. Vishwanath Anand or Pace is also very good in their games. Then why only cricket? I have my own thoughts on “Why cricket?”, will share with you very soon.

Sanjay Sonar

थोरांची ओळख

Original post date - 11 March 2010

इयत्ता तिसरीला इतिहासाचे म्हणून आम्हाला "थोरांची ओळख" नावाचे पुस्तक होते. पहिला धडा दादाभाई नवरोझी यांचा होता. सर्व थोर पुरुषांचा अल्प परिचय त्यात होता. सरदार वल्लभ भाई पटेल यांनी स्वतःची गाठ कशी काढली? लाल बहादूर शास्री लहान असतांना अनवाणी शाळेत जायचे. गांधीजी यांची हत्या एका माथेफिरू ने केली.. हे सगळे मला अजूनही आठवते.

जस-जसे आपण मोठे (वयाने) होतो, तस-तशी आपली अक्कल  नको तितकी वाढत जाते. आणि तीही अपूर्ण! Half knowledge is more dangerous म्हणतात ते खोट नाही. (अजूनही पूर्ण शहाणपण आले आहे, असा माझा दावा नाही!)

साधारण पणे जुनियर कॉलेज च्या वयात आम्हाला गांधीजी यांनी कसे भारताचे नुकसान केले..आणि नथुराम गोडसेच कसा भारी.. वगैरे सांगण्यात आले.. आणि मग पुढे जाऊन त्यांचे सत्याचे प्रयोग.. एकूण बर्याच अफवा/अर्धसत्य ऐकून एक मत तयार झाले..

गांधीजी आणि नेहरू यांच्या नावाने कॅन्टीन वर बसून बोटे मोडणे हे सर्व प्रकार सुरु झाले..

पुढे काही दिवसांनी शिवाजी महाराजांबद्दल (ज्यांच्या नावे पूर्ण ४ थी ते १० वी आम्ही गाजवली) काही खसखस पिकू लागली.. कि म्हणे त्यांनी बरीच लग्न केलीत.. असा काळ कि ज्यात दोन लग्न केलेली म्हणे आम्हाला खलनायक म्हणून पहायची सवय.. इथे असले काही कळल्यावर जीवाची उलघाल होणारच!

पुढे तसेच काही मग भगवान कृष्ण ते वीर सावरकर यांच्या पर्यंत ऐकले..

आता जेव्हा डोक्यावरचे पांढरे झाले.. अस वाटतंय कि आपण कुठल्या हक्काने ह्या इतक्या महान लोकांबद्दल आपले मत ठोकून दिले? एक-दोन वर्ष नाही तर त्यांनी उभे आयुष्य आपल्या कार्यासाठी वाहून दिले.. गांधीजी असोत कि सावरकर .. प्रत्येकाचे योगदान अतुल्य आहे! 

त्यांनी आपल्या खाजगी आयुष्यात काय केले याचा हिशेब मांडणारे आपण कोण? तुम्ही आम्ही काय कमी चुका केल्यात आयुष्यात.

वास्तविक पाहता ह्या महान लोकांची ताकत आणि प्रसिद्धी पाहता, त्याचा उपयोग ते स्वतःच्या स्वार्थासाठी करू शकले असते. पण त्यांनी तसे केले नाही.

छत्रपती शिवाजी महाराजांनी जर मुघलांची चाकरी स्वीकारली असती आणि आरामात आयुष्य काढायचे ठरवले असते तर काय हाहाकार माजला असता हे सांगायची गरज नाही. महाराष्ट्रासाठीच नव्हे तर पूर्ण भारतासाठी त्यांचे योगदान अनमोल आहे.

विधायक पद्धतीने स्वातंत्र्याचा लढा चालवणारे गांधीजी, काळ्या पाण्याची शिक्षा अनुभवलेले वीर सावरकर, पंतप्रधान पदाची धुरा सांभाळत लोकशाहीची मुळे रुजवणारे नेहरू... सर्वच आपल्या थोर पणासाठी पात्र आहेत.

दुर्दैव असे कि लहानपणी  थोर असलेल्या ह्या महान लोकांबद्दल अजूनही आपल्या पैकी काही जणांचे मत कॉलेजवरील कट्ट्यावरच्या गप्पांनी प्रेरित आहे. आपल्याला पुन्हा एकदा गरज आहे "थोरांची ओळख" करण्याची.

संजय सोनार

Quality – Process verses Product

Original post date - 12 March 2010

I want to share my thought about quality. Generally, quality is defined as good product which performs as per expectations with no defects. Also, we think that higher the features or performance higher the quality. This can be true but not always.

For example, you have LCD TV (A) and regular TV (B). We generally say, LCD TV is of good quality and regular picture tube TV is of inferior quality. In reality, it is not. We can say that A is of better “grade” than B. However, if that LCD TV is having poor picture quality (for it’s standard) whereas regular TV is giving best picture among other picture tube TVs then I will call A is of poor quality and B is of better quality.

This is the difference between grade and quality. Low grade may or may not be a problem, but poor quality is always a problem.

Now, let’s talk about process. If you see the best quality product in hand can you say that it is the best quality? Many of us will say, why not? We have got what we want. It performs better than expected; it costs less, what else you want?

Let’s take simple example of Vada Paav. There is a place where you get Vada which tastes best, you can say that its of best quality. Right?

Now, I tell you how it is made in kitchen. Owner gets low cost poor quality potatoes from market. He directly cooks it in bore water without cleaning. The kitchen is backyard of his house where all dirt is around. Cook doesn’t wash his hands. He uses unwashed utensils, clothes. Oil is used and re-used over and over. It is not low fat filtered oil. By the time it reaches to your plate it passed through many places/hands with bacteria.

Now, this Vada which tastes the same, will you call it good quality?

You will look for some other place, where Vada has somewhat same taste but where it is made in front of you in hygienic conditions with good quality material. You will ready to pay more cost also.

This is the importance of “quality process”. “How” is the key word here! As new age consumer you and your customer also are looking for that. Make sure you follow high quality process to produce your high quality product.

Sanjay Sonar

Bye Bye BigAdda

BigAdda (ADA - Anil Dhirubhai Ambani) had Big (Big B) plan when they got Big B to host his blog. Slowly they moved from blogging to selling, which they wanted to do it. Today they sent me email that they are focusing on "ecommerce" and scaling down "social networking". :)
So, I am moving to reliable spot.. blogspot!

FYI - My old blog was http://blogs.bigadda.com/sansonar/