Thing to think

"Helloo.. Amma, I have got my first job :). I got in the first company itself which came to college. Just now the results were announced and I wanted to tell you first. What happened amma? Are you not happy? Are you crying?"

"Helloo.. Amma.. How are you? Have you been eating properly?"
"Yes son.. But now I don't care all those things. My life is almost over. I am getting older. You tell. How are you?"
"I am ok amma. Lots of work. Quite busy nowadays. I will call you later"
"Ok then. Bye"

"Hello Achamma(Grandmother).."
"Yes son.. I have been eager to talk to you. It has been quite a long time. When will you come to see me?"
"I am not sure about when I would be coming. But I will come and meet you when I come for sure. How is your health?"
"My leg still pains. I am finding it very difficult to walk nowadays."
"Take care of your health achamma.Meet doc if possible.Don't do too much of work" 
"Ok son. Now don't waste money. Sleep now"   
"Ok achamme.. I will call later."

"Helloo Amma. I am having some work, so I may not be able to come for Onam"
"Is it so? Would you be coming anytime after that?"
"I can only come next month. There are no tickets also available"
"Your grandmother is sick. She was telling she wants to see you."
"I will see her next time when I come there"
"Ok son. Don't waste money in all these calls. Take care and bye".

"Hi son.. We are not having any celebration this time. Without you, what onam celebration?
It would have been good if you had come. Who knows if I would be there or not on next Onam"
"What are you talking amma? Don't talk like this. I will come there soon"

"Haan acha.. What happened? Didn't sleep till now? It is very late."
"Son.. Your grandmother passed away. She was asking if she can see you even the day before"....

I didn't know what to do. Its over and I can't redo the past anymore. I used to thing I will never repent in future for anything that I do. Now I am repenting this and I would repent this my whole life. I was not with her when she actually needed me. She loved me a lot and always wanted me to be with her.

Now, it is more than six years I have been working away from my house, now quite far that I will not be able to reach home even in one day. Sometimes my amma tells that she has not even seen me properly after I have grown up. She tells that after school, I had left home and then it is rare that she has seen me. My father sometimes asks if I can get some job nearby? I used to just hear that and then forget it. May be I was selfish.

As a person without any aim in my life, I had decided that I will at least try giving happiness to my near and dear ones. Wanted my parents to be happy.Till I got a job, I think I have tried my level best to do that. But after that, I don't know how things changed. Yes, I know my parents would be happy even now as I can look after myself now. But I am not very sure if they are really happy.

Something which was implicitly said many times was never understood by me. Any parents would want their children near them. But then, they cannot tell it to me. How can parents intentionally interfere in their kids future? It may be good for him that he works where he is presently. We cannot force him to leave his career for our happiness. But as a son, I should have understood that. It is not when they are young, they need us. It is when they are old, they need us. Till we were not self sustained, they were with us. Now, when they need us, we are nowhere near them. They depend on neighbors or others whom they don't even know. This was never my purpose.


Now I think what if I had avoided that software delivery and had gone to meet my grandmother??
But thinking is the only thing I can do and repent.

Near Death Experience

I am hearing the sound of ambulance. I was sleeping and suddenly why this sound?
Let me just open my eyes and see.Oh. Its me inside the ambulance. I can see my body
there. Am I already dead? Or I am still living? They have oxygen mask still on my
face, so I guess I am still alive.

I don't want to die sooo soon. Hope I would reach hospital on time. There is huge traffic
here but I can see people making way for me. Good. Might be because of Ambulance sound.
I still have hopes. I know the way. It is tidel road now. So in another half an hour
maximum, I would be at Appolo. Don't know if I should be happy, but i have hopes.

I have reached the signal near IIT Madras. Why suddenly the traffic have stopped??
There is no way in which the vehicle can go now. What happend? I am loosing my life slowly.
Hope it will go off soon. None of the vehicle is moving. I do't think I can wait any
longer.

What is this? Am hearing some other noises similar to Ambulance. I think it is some
elected candidate going. I myself had given vote for him. Till now, other than corruption,
he has not done anything. Why are they blocking the road for him? There is nothing urgent
social service for him to do. He can slowly reach destination and do his corrupt social
service. Here I am dying. I think its almost over. The last think that I can see is my
elected candidates face. Everything went blank. I just wished if I had my last moments in
Kerala other than Chennai, I might be alive.

What is this?? Did I get a second chance? Am again in ambulance. I think God heard my
wish. I am in Kerala. I can see Malayalam sign board. I will live now. Its i almost
night 12. The roads are empty and only this ambulance. I am happy. I will reach hospital
very soon, and I will be fully alive. But what is this?? I can hear stones hitting the
ambulance. Poor driver stopped the vehicle and ran away. I don't know how it got over.
It was again blank. Nothing left. Just remembered someone saying, "Don't you know its
whole Kerala Bandh from tonight?? How can you take the vehicle out? Run or you also would
be in Ambulance".

I understood that it was in a much faster way I reached near God. That is why I guess it is
called God's own country.

Anyways, fate of an Indian is, whatever God wishes, your life would be decided by politicians
and political parties whom we elect to spend our money for their well being.

Foolishness or Honesty

I got my first pay-slip. The amount was not enough. It was less than what I was told.
I went through the pay-slip again. Its true. It was not my mistake. It was less than I expected.I started analysing it and found the major culprit. It was something called
income tax. I was wondering that I have to work hard, almost 12 hours a day and then
I have to pay tax to the government. I was irritated. Why is it like this? If government
wanted money, let them also work hard, why taking my hard earned money? ;P.

It was pretty childish. Anyone who is reading this would have thought the same.
It has been more than 5 years since I am working. But I know the thought was not silly.I feel I was right.

I asked myself about this. What good this money does? First answer was, it is this
tax money that is given as salary to government employees. When I got this answer,
I felt my previous thought was a big mistake. My father was a government employee.
His salary was just Rs. 3000. I had to depend on bank loan for my studies. I thought
if government had more money, govt officials like my father would have
got a better salary and their families would have had a better living. But
even now, the government servants gets a similar salary. Nothing has
changed.

Next answer that I found was govt uses it to give us better roads and better medical facilities.
That was something great. Roads determine how well a place develops. It was a great thing
that was happening with tax. So I happily drove my car, for which I have already given enough
road tax(don't know why separate tax again) on our roads. Result: My car is now in service
center because of suspension issues which arose because of gutters and pot holes in the great
roads. I would be paying a very good bill which has enough Value added tax in that. So, further
money to government. I felt the tax system is like a money chain. I give road tax and income
tax. Govt make very bad roads with that so that they get value added taxes for bills that
we have to give for our vehicle service. By the way, I missed out a strange thing here. While
I was driving, I found some good roads. I was happy but suddenly someone stopped me and started asking money. For using that road, my tax money is not enough. TOLL. This is what they called. So, again its from my pocket. I was wondering if robbery has become public.

I wanted to stop thinking about tax after my car condition. But as I mentioned, govt starts hospitals where there are free service to patients. At least something good is happening with my
money. I was relieved. But alas. What is this? I control taking news paper in my hand.
I can't read the news. I can't accept anything happening in this world. But it was really
boring day and I took the newspaper. Good news was that a lady gave birth to a boy on
the road. At least future Indian generation is lucky enough to see the roads made by
taxpayers during birth itself. Now, the lady and new born got such an opportunity
because they were thrown out of govt hospital. My frustration was increasing.
I had to console myself. I had to find where my tax money was going.

I know how much my father was getting. I know how good the roads are. Now I know
how well the medical facilities are also. So where is all the money going. I was looking for
answers. Thought a lot. But I couldn't find an answer. Suddenly, my eyes went to the
newspaper again. I was seeing certain amounts of money. I tried to find the number
of zeroes in that. I was not able to get it soon.. It was 1000 crore. To be more clear on
number of zeroes, it would be Rs.100000000000. Why this big amount is there in news
paper? It was just one scam, CWG scam. Some game happening in India were there
was a corruption of this much amount. It gave me an answer where our tax money is
going. Our corrupt politicians are making a life with it. Checked for another news. It was
also a similar amount. Some 2G scam. Another hefty amount in crores. I cannot write
all those crores in this. India is full of scams. Something that we taxpayers should be
proud of. It was very clear to me where my tax money was going.

And us, poor software engineers are considered to be the richest in the world. Might be
because we are paying a lot of tax. Now coming back to the title. Are we really fools
to give our hard earned money to these corrupt politicians. They are very clever.
They take our money, and they even escape tax also. As I mentioned already, if
govt needs money, it should earn it. If I am giving my hard earned money, I need
to know where it is spend. It shouldn't be that I sit and read newspaper and learn
that Mr. Suresh Kalmadi has made a fixed deposit of average 1 cr Indians money
in his name. Its not for him that we are working. Some simple statistics are given
below. Interested people can read.

I have an emi of 25 K for my house. Every month, I lose this. I also give a tax of
8 K every month. If I don't waste this money on corrupt politicians, at least
I can finish of my loans a bit early. And, if I lose my job, govt is not going to give
back the tax amount that I gave for the last 5 years. I myself will have to take care.
So, its really foolishness doing this tax payment for no reason. It cannot be
called honesty. It can be just called foolishness.

After one day of thought again, I have got one more idea regarding the tax payment.
Instead of calling it as income tax, there can be another option. It can be termed as
Suresh Kalmadi corruption fund or Raja Corruption fund. It has two advantages.
We are not ignorant about where our tax money is going. Second advantage is we need
not go behind that again for filing returns at the end of the year as there would be
no returns. There is one more advantage which I had thought but I was not sure
if it would be same in India. If we don't pay income tax, its a criminal offense. But
if it is for funds like this, I hope Indian govt will not make it a criminal case if we
don't pay it ;-).