Friday, October 3, 2008

Smo-Banned-King

Smoking Banned !!!
As per the new rule, smoking is banned in public places and workplaces in India. The exact details of the rule is yet to be finalized - what will be the amount of fine, details of categorizing public places etc will roll out in a couple of days. There was a mail sent out to employees in my company that smoking is not allowed within the campus. All smoking zones were missing from the campus this morning. Shortly there will be notice boards all around the campus indicating the same ...
We all have been hearing from media about this news.
Not sure whose brainchild this rule is, but i certainly cannot digest this new rule. There a group of people in favor of this rule, and another group not in favor of this rule.

One of the shop owners who sells cigarrates had removed the lighting device at her shop in fear of this new rule, but however did not stop selling cigarrattes !!! weird, atleast for me ...

I was reading in one of the newspapers, where in a viewer had recommended 3 months simple imprisonment for people violating the rule ..give me a break !! 3 months simple imprisonment for smoking in public !!!!! what ever ...

a) Why are workplaces being targetted as public places ? As long as there are dedicated smoking zones, i do not understand the need for categorizing workplaces as public places ...

b) With this new rule as a citizen of this country, am i not free to run a restuarant/cafebar with smoking in place ? Well i believe this should be a choice of the owner who owns the place to decide whether his restuarant/cafe is "SMOKING-ONLY" or "NON-SMOKING" area. As long as it is advertised properly this should not be of concern to general public.
If we have the freedom to own just a normal "Resturant" or a "family bar and restuarant", then we should still have the freedomw of "family smoke-bar and restuarant" too ...


c) What are we achieving by imposing a ban on smoking and making it difficult for the restuarants/cafe/smokers !! If your answer is "smoking is injurious to health" and so this ban is good, then people ...why dont you get to the root of the problem and ban manufacturing/sale of any tobacco based product which is known to be injurious to health ? Why not categorize cigarrates/gutka as DRUGS and arrest people involved in either manufacturing/selling/consuming the same ?

People should have the freedom to decide whethere they want to remain "smokers"/"non-smokers". It MUST not be forced upon people. Its a choice which people themselves have to make.
I am not against this rule completely ....Yes, if you are categorizing "Bus-stops" as non smoking zone, i am for it. It does cause inconvinience to the general public. But definitely smoking in a designated area in cafes/workplaces or smoking at a restuarant which has put up proper sign boards informing the public clearly that it is a smoking area is a fair deal...

Not sure, if our bengaluru international airport has any smoking rooms, if yes i guess they will also have to be removed as well !!!

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Biased ....From Birth !!

A group of young men aged 25-26 standing near a shop .....

A: Wait for sometime ..i hope these guys approach us, i will break their bones
B: No, lets take some money from them pretending to listen to them
A: Loafers...they are always looking out for opportunity to convert hindus to chrisitans
B: DO you think you can break their bones, well then give it a try.why are you not standing up against them if you know that they are wrong
A: Let them approach me first
B: See its not so simple ..people are given food and money,why will they not heed to their voice ?
A: Why dont you do something to stop them ...we in hindus have many sub castes and what not, people are differentiated based on caste.
B: Why cant you provide basic amenities to hindus to stop them from following another religion ??
A: #&$&^%%# ...they have no better work #$#@$@#$@#$@



I tried a prank on Mr. XYZ sometime back ...i called him up from a unknown number and pretended to understand only hindi and was looking for some person named Mr. Bashir Khan ...and introduce myself as another khan !!...first attempt ...call is disconnected ..second attempt tries to tell me that its wrong number....third time cuts the call ...
fourth time i call him up and tell him that its me vivek ....he responds
"i heard the name khan and on hearing the name i decided not to answer the call ...but then the call kept coming in !! i had no choice but to answer it else the call would keep coming in!!!"

He hates them to the core .. a true hindu ..proud to be a hindu types .....

News on terrorism ...@#$#@$@#$ the muslims ...i hear this many times from him
This is not specific to one person i have seen many people with such views.

At such times i wonder why people show such hatredness towards a specific community ??
i have many muslim and christian friends ...they are not bad ...i have many hindu friends ...all of them are not good !!
then why is that a particular section have to be harassed ???

I tried a lot arguing with my friend trying to make him understand that what he is thinking may not be the truth ...but all my efforts failed ...he believes in what he thinks and he does judge people based on caste ...

Here i am not trying to highlight the nature of a person in particular ...i somehow dont feel so good about such things ...i wish if people would not consider Religion/caste/language to judge a person ...and see each other as HUMAN BEINGS !!

We shouldnt generalize any comments ...even if there are a million people who are involved in terrorism, there are millions of others who are normal human beings ...is it fair enough to generalize such comments ???
It may be too much but i believe even if there is only one single person of a community who is good then i would still not generalize my comments as there is one person who is still good...i always believed and strongly believe that religions/language etc were man-made for what ever reasons and they mean not much to me when compared to an individual !!
In the first place i would never identify a terrorist/criminal by his religion or caste ...he is just an individual to me on planet earth !!

In the process i have realized that arguments don't work in some cases, it just heats up the discussion and there is no change in the attitude of the other person ...because he/she with such thoughts is
biased from birth !!
After realizing this i have stopped making any heated arguments ...ignore such comments ...remember
Ignorance is bliss !!

I am sure such things would exist for ever and nothing is gonna change...