The Monsoons and a Car

The sun had already set and, it was really dark, I was cruising through sheets of water: excitedly -I barely see anything outside.

From the 'cockpit', I see - rather feel - them: a zillion biggish drops from the heavens come bang on my windshield now, and explode into a thousand pieces. I feel as if I were inside a warm drum, and realise even drums can sing lullabies. Ah, well, my vision clear for a moment, just after my dutiful wiper shoved 'em aside, but in vain. It was pouring down .. on and on.. I take a deep breath, and look at the lovely vista ahead of me: The trees on both sides of the road bend down heavily and sway. May be they want to kiss the earth delightedly. Well lit facades of shops pass by, shimmering neon lights leave wavy glowing trails. A deafening sound follows a thunderbolt. I say "wow, Luv it..". despite for all that. I feel safe inside my warm cozy car, smoothly moving ahead, together with other slowly moving cars.
* * * *
I was on my way to pick my sis up from the railway station - and I thoroughly enjoyed my driving that night. I *love* driving in the rain!
(I dont know what made me write it, but it was fun :) )

Pains of a commoner

"Aaargh! man, make your own policies - But, can you? "

It all started the other day, when I was smitten by the thought of going broadband. Pop! up came the word 'mobility', first, to my mind - and mobility in its true sense, you know - no more tethering to a funny box, I need freedom. Fine, that's it, and?

Well, It should've good coverage, and a fair 'downloading speed'(yikes!) also. (am no birdbrain who would get convinced by those adverts boasting a whopping 3.1 MBps, but found practically I get around 1 - wow, even that's great! Cool.) I love GBs of cool stuffs - call it watching stuffs over the youtube, or downloading all those crazy things. And then, I have a camera that goes 'ratatat' at every li'l thing it thinks cool (and it does consider too :D) and soon a pile of photos will plead me for more life - well, that means I need a fair upload power too. I call up the marketing guys; manage to arrange a few live demos at my place, thumb through the funny tariff sheets (Oh, a permutation and combination of different cheating strategies, if you ask me , hehe - never mind - no way out!). And Finally I give the order to one of the two shortlisted Indian giants.

And then - only then - did I really take a good look at the lovely little thing:

The gadget went by the name Photon Plus - cool - and was looking sexy and handy. I started reading the story written on its body- good, good, but, wait... Aaargh - you see that? To my great despair, it was a Huwaei make. Even both of the Indian giants - The Reliance as well as the TATA Indicom- use Huwaei Technologies, or the alternative is ZTE.(Another Chinese make). Uh, all spy machines!

Huwaei, is, the much dreaded Chinese military's own baby, originally. (Sorry, in case any of you happen to work for that company). The Indian intelligence wing, RAW, had recently declined a BSNL business deal with Huwaei on the very same grounds, (and gave it to Ericsson and ) (June 2009) for laying telecom lines along the western side of our country, (though much of the south's lines are still fed by the Huwaei technologies). (That GSM expansion deal was the single largest telecom contract ever: at 30, 000 crore INR). Huwaei is not given any major participation in the US market, by a wary government there, but UK did - lavishly- and will soon pay for its shortsighted decision (like me, boohoo). The recent 'ghostnet episode' has made people loath the clandestine Chinese government's unethical policies. And still, in India, we are giving our people the very s(h)ame dangerous piece of an artwork, nicely painted. Even if we, Indians, make a personal policy on this, we don't have any options 'cos our govt hasn't done anything in this niche market..! Every other vendor is giving you the same make: 'cos it comes you at cheaper bucks: Off the people, Buy the people, 'Fore' you people!!

DISCLAIMER:
My remarks are all on the policy the Chinese govt has - no way related to the people there.