NAMASTE INDIA

 

I was over and done with my recent blog on “Two India’s” that compromised on economic division of North and South India but I was not contented for what I had written, there is a need to tell the layman, the accurate diversity linking North and South India I then surfed it on “Wikipedia” and “Google web links” that,” Why South India is better than North India”?

Various columnists and bloggiest showed up the facts but someone whom everyone looks up to is Aakar Patel and Madhukar Sabnavis.Needless to say, I had to read it to stay in sync with the happening crowd.

Minutes later I yipped! It was then I  decided in about my upcoming article and got my heart comforted that what Aakar Patel beamed are the facts and something in which I will personally agree Being a North Indian myself, I was brought up in south and what I feel I would like to convey. 

 Like each day, My Sony deck was playing all my favorite Indo-western tracks which I am addictive too while doing some work, then Aaa Ante Amlapuroo one of the famous southern tracks appeared on it and minutes later, I heard some loud voices including my mother pissed at me about wasting my time listening to irrelevant tracks and not helping her out with dinner. I was brought up learning all different languages of India. So, for me I know what I was singing and what it means.
There’s a commonly found ability of south Indians to articulate or eavesdrop to another (Indian) state’s language. This comes from closeness more than from any pressing desire to be multicultural. But it shows the southerner’s openness, and even his canon of sacred music includes songs from another state, in another language. Not because it is awesome .The track that I was listening “Aaa ante Amlapuroo” have written established tunes. The words in the song described the famous towns of Andhra Pradesh It separates them from north Indians who have no rule of Lyrical music. The average southerner can assess a performance of his classical music better than the other. To appreciate Hindustani music other than automatically, a northerner must study the deep form of his music, which a few can. There are Punjabi tracks which are very popular here, but the lyrics and the background music has are vogue less for me.  
Clearly, the two cultures are different. Let’s look at some of the substantive ways in which they differ
 Within the country we have always wondered at the black looking, dhoti clad, rice-sambhar eating  Madrasis whose icons are some filmi heroes and Dravidian leaders, who have a deep seated penchant for take up the superiority of their own lingua and the ancient culture which, they are perennially afraid, will be diluted by the introduction of a common national language ! There can be as many views as the number of states in the Indian union about each other perspective as viewed by an out-sider.  While penning down this article, gave me the views of a native of western part of our country about a southerner and bringing out the nuances which are not only humorous but also informative.

The south Indian can access the north Indian’s music easily. Often he even masters it. WitnessTamilians A.R. Rahman and Shankar Mahadevan in Indian film Industry. Something that strikes me as being different is that south India’s high culture has little influence of Islam. It is Hindu culture, not a mix. There is complete Hindustani- Catholicism. There’s no equivalent of “Ganga Jamuni”, as the northerner refers to his high culture, a mix of Hindu tradition and the aristocratic Perso-Arabic tradition produced during Muslim rule. This might be seen as a bad thing. But the south Indian is actually quite tolerant. North India’s high culture is Indo-Persian, whether in music or poetry. Even some of the popular culture is influenced by Islam, such as Amir Khusro. What is the south Indian Muslim’s high culture? I do not know. There is no urban Muslim aristocracy here unlike the north, were one to exclude the Dakhni speakers of Hyderabad. Much of the culture appears imitative of the north’s Indo-Persian tradition. This seems out of place here, and perhaps one reason for the lack of mingling is that for the most part the southern Muslim’s culture is low church, and therefore unappealing to the outsider.   Next,The most important one for me is Mumbai has its own charms, but an intellectual life isn’t among them. It is a city of singularly dull conversation. This is because south Mumbai is dominated by Guajarati who are not an intellectual people and quite proud of that fact. In the north of the city, Bollywood’s cacophony effectively obliterates any other culture. It is true that the middle-class Marathi is different, but he has no desires.  There is commonly found ability of south Indians to speak another (southern) state’s language. This comes from proximity more than from any pressing desire to be multicultural. But it shows the southerner’s openness, and even his canon of sacred music includes songs from another state, in another language. I like Mumbai, and it is my dream city but Third costliest urban town after Hyderabad and Gurgaon.

Hours later at my place, we witness some family relations from the maternal side. The 2bhk flat  converts into a zoo completely..  One hardly gives relaxation to its epiglottis. This is one of my examples regarding intolerant voices with less personality traits.

During one of the conversation with my renowed family relatives, a teenager intervenes the talk and tells me that he is going to switch to his father’s clinic as well as their family business as he is quite aware of it and education comes later. “Papa paisa laga dege aur mein pass ho jaounga”. It’s true. He is too bad with his subjects. I don’t bother much, he said”. This proved me that northerns are nothing but business clads with getting profit for themselves and no participation for society or state. . They are foul-mouthed. They show off their Audis and SUVs’. I suddenly had flashes of all the smart south Indian kids who always scored higher than me while I was in Maharashtra. Now I knew why?

Education is the first criteria before anything done by the government in South. One can find all good quality of educational institute including the vocational subjects. There is a broad mentality with southerner in every aspect. Young people from the south are migrating to the northern urban towns and capitals in search of employment. Currently, the migration of southerners to the north has declined while northerners are moving in large numbers to the south in search of jobs.

Next day, there was a debate on Aaj Tak about the road rage incident in Delhi. The news reader asked a government official about,” why things like these don't happen in Mumbai. In response, to this, one of the Official said, that apart from police, it is also a matter of cultural differences between North and the South. From the time of Independence, the south has been ahead of the north in literacy, infant mortality, life expectancy, fertility rate and other factors that contribute to greater productivity.

According to the PAC study, south is not just a "supply side miracle “but quality of governance and leadership is somewhat better in south. It is also ahead in terms of technical education, tele-density, power and urbanization. More than half of all engineering colleges in the country are in the south, as I told you before, better governance facilitated these factors and enabled the state to more efficiently utilize its scarce resources.
Samuel Paul one of the activists said, “Social movements in the south made people more aware of the need to demand better and more equitable governance from the authorities”.
Strong movements in Kerala and Tamil Nadu a century ago began to mobilize vast segments of population especially the lower castes, to push for education and job reservation in government. Governments there responded and the result was the increased spread of education, awareness, networking and entrepreneurship in the southern states, the study said.
"This in turn laid the foundation for a more inclusive growth pattern. Such social movements are absent in the north where the demand for better governance and entitlements from lower castes was absent or merely used for identity politics. When the demand is missing, the pressure on the supply side is also too weak
 Talking about northerner and southern tolerance, it is true that over here in North, people are quick to get into fights. Even for small issues it is normal for people to thrash each other. There have been cases in my state where Politicians bashing other party member of parliament  had a live telecast on news channels  over religious issues based on beef banning bill in the state that is band all over India by the present government.
 Baniya, the south Brahman, vegetarianism isn’t oppressive. The intolerant and insular Guajarati  and Marwari of Malabar Hill have banished all meat from their neighborhoods. There is little sign of such horror of pork and beef eaters around their now. But Generally speaking, the Gujarati’s fanaticism against meat is absent.

 Few days back The Times of India, published an article about the cleanest city of India, Bangalore.

 I was in Bangalore for a week, representing my university from north then, where the state seemed to be relaxed and much less chaotic than an average Northie city. I stayed near Mysore and there was a main road that passed through over my hostel. Even during the busiest hours of the day I could walk on that road without being afraid of the traffic. I made a wish that I will plant something here of mine in future.  South India is far from being pollution free; they are visibly cleaner.  The streets appear to be much better looked after by the people, with no sign of people abandoning their plastic to the streets anywhere and everywhere.  I am certain this contributes to how beautiful it is in the south, the land is free to be seen without being covered in a sea of garbage. North is a complete opposite of it

Another welcome difference I have noticed is the way the men behaved. My primitive ears can tackle loud voices and interfaces in others matter  I have talked about  North Indian  men   are too loud  I stand by what I said, but perhaps I should make an codicil as  what I have experienced in South India.  The men here are either more polite or better at hiding their behavior.  I am not sure why this behavior is so different here, possibly education is a factor, or perhaps there is something else going here culturally in the way people are raised.

Getting to the feminine slice, I have witnessed is the women, are visible in south and north I always felt like women were invisible, particularly in the evening.  Here in the south I see them everywhere, in public transport, on the streets, working and going about their daily business. Perhaps this is part of the reason why the men behave so differently, women wandering the streets are not a foreign sight to them, but a normal part of everyday life. There is no show off at all here as compared to the opposites.
 Dravidian's   appears to be more affluent than the north.  People look much better fed; the housing looks better and there are fewer beggars on the street.  Poverty is still definitely here, but it is far less in your face than I found in north India.  This may be because the population is more sparse here creating an illusion of affluence.
South’s urban culture is more intellectual. The theory is that this is so because its culture is subjugated by the Brahman. When I listen to intelligent conversation in South and look around there is a vast difference, they dominate. People like Ananthampty and M.s Subbhalaxmi would not be treasured in another culture as they are in southern region. It seems to me that civic life here is more intellectual, and certainly it strives more than in Gujarat or Maharashtra.

 During a holiding, I formulated a quick plan, going forward, Roadies was coming on Mtv channel but I was interrupted by my father to put the local news as what I was watching was not in our culture. To keep his heart I switched on to local news channel that had ads more than the news itself. It was a feeling of watching 30 minutes serial show with ads by its side that came as a distraction for me.

To increase my culture quotient, and soon I should be able to understand the vocal languages like the good people from the South do. I simply visualized how I will   converse with my future would be in tuti futi dogri, my mother tongue, and call him “A ji”. Sunday and saturtaday has a start of rajma chawal or channe and poori as the brunch for weekends. South has variety of food cusines, that are really relish-able and if you live with a south Indian, you will notice that there’s a change in their meals every second day that can be easily digested. No doubt north Indians are foodie but south Indians relish the true taste

My mother calls me a true southie girl, not because I am part of it but because I have my actual comrades from this side of India. There’s more than that what her mental level thinks for me. I may not be able to explain her but my heart thinks psychologically better, I guess so.

 I am increasingly realizing the fact that a larger proportion of North Indians I have encountered (as compared to South Indians) have too much of ego, attitude of knowing almost everything, lack spine to say-'I don't know' and nonetheless inherent habits of show off .

Man creates his destiny, If Michael Jackson could go from black to white, and surely going from whitish to a couple of shades darker must be a relative cakewalk. What say?

Thank you Aakar Patel, for boarding up my knowledge and waking me up from hallucinations of true India. The guy made me realize just how pathetic an existence do we North Indians live like.

"TWO INDIAS"

Less than a decade in north India, there’s a colossal cultural shift that I have witnessed between north and south India. It’s not just the food and climate though that makes South India the finest state to me; it is the people and the environment, music, culture, religion, education, language, and their attitude and behavior that I have personally witnessed from both the directions.

 In the last few years, there has been much written and said about "two India’s" – called north and south. One is largely dependent in the metros and large towns - the entry point for most multinational brands, and where the early adopters of new products were located. The second India is where the early majority of the market exists, and the markets where scale could be achieved. India 2 is always seen to be looking up to India 1 and adopting things a 'bit' later. However, mixes needed to be somewhat adapted for the local conditions and communication needed to go beyond the brand to layers of emotion. Just as an indication, let's compare numbers for the four "Bimaru" states (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh) representing North India and the four South Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The Bimaru states account for about 450 million people, and the four South Indian states, about 250 mn.

The average monthly per-capita household expenditure for North India across the states in both urban and rural regions is much lower than the India average of Rs 1,984 and Rs 1,054 respectively, while for the four southern states, it's largely higher. The same is true about the penetration of consumer items like televisions and two-wheeler - and for latrines within the premises too. The average South Indian family has a better quality of life than its Northern counterpart.

 
The numbers may not be definitive but indicate that the North and South are evolving as two different economies, and could be treated as different countries. It's already well known that modern trade is more evolved in the South than the North. And basic infrastructure is also superior in South India versus the North. Marketers have been historically sensitive to the cultural difference between the two regions. And mixes have often been adapted for the same - from language to caste to modifying rituals in advertising and even products to suit local tastes and needs. Mass media has evolved in an isolatable manner and so made the creation of distinct communication easy. However, as we move forward, this new dimension to the "two Indias" story could provoke fresh, fundamental thinking in marketing. It would be facile to say that more evolved market mixes would suit the South and that of more developing markets be adapted for the North, based on the indicators mentioned at the start of this piece. These numbers just indicate that the South is ahead of the development curve compared to the North, and is growing older.

However, it may be interesting to consider different tasks in these markets and develop both marketing mixes and communication palettes accordingly. This recognizes that the two markets could be at different stages of evolution for the same category. There could be a penetration task in the North and a consumption task in the South; it could be a transactional task in the North and brand affinity-building in the South.

Even the tonality of communication and the role of larger purposes assigned to brands could be different. As the South is older, brands should be less irreverent, yet able to stand for larger purposes including social causes given the market iss more evolved, especially educationally. Some brand stances that work in the West today could be more easily used in the South for brands and categories that are more evolved in those markets; the North may still need some basic market development concepts. The greater presence of modern trade in the South means different shopper behavior, at least for a core segment, and hence different media opportunities to drive brand-building.

South India is far from being pollution free; the streets here are visibly cleaner.  The streets appear to be much better looked after by the people, with no sign of people abandoning their plastic to the streets anywhere and everywhere.  I am certain this contributes to how beautiful it is in the south, the land is free to be seen without being covered in a sea of garbage. . Another welcome difference is south Indians give first important preference to education than what we see in north where children  are business  learned  I am not sure why this behavior is so different here, possibly education is a factor, or perhaps there is something else going here culturally in the way people are raised.

On the basis of my readings and net search,there is more educational infrastructure per capita in the south, which is likely to be a major contributing factor to the improved environment. I have to say, it has certainly made a huge difference, enough for me to contemplate whether perhaps it is somewhere I could call home in the future.

JAMMU AS A SMART CITY

 Curtains have been withdrawn, as on last month, the urban development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu announced names of those lucky Ninety eight urban centers and cities that have been listed by the state governments for smart city scheme, neglecting Jammu and Kashmir completely. JNKPPP leader in his annoying speech said that ,’it is true  failure of ruling party that we have not got even one town in as smart city scheme, The citizens of various cities have started dreaming about future outlooks of their cities and facilities they will enjoy after the development, smart governance, smart energy, smart building, smart mobility, smart infrastructure, and smart technology by having smart city status but we will lack the connectivity completely  because of internal fights taking place in Jammu And Kashmir.’

Jammu deserves to be nominated. Tax collection during last two financial years2011-2012, 2012-2013 in Jammu was Rs9624.63 crore through state excise and commercial tax departments of which Rs7117.61 crore were realized from Jammu division while Rs2507.01 crore realized in Kashmir division. Tax collection from GST, VAT and entry taxes to Jammu and Kashmir is Rs6251.98 crores.Rs31 crore was realized from Lakhanpur toll plaza imposing penalties on tax evaders for violating provisions of Jammu and Kashmir VAT,GST etc.The revenue collection from power and water resources sector indicates that Jammu pays 25 to 30% more tan Srinagar .

Jammu and Kashmir with a population of 1.30 crore is directly linked to many states and almost every visitor first drops here and then proceeds to another destinations. About two crore people visit Jammu for having pilgrimage to Mata Vaishno Devi temple at  Katra So, it is desirable for any visitor to first land in smart city because first intuition of the state caries a significant impact. Jammu climatically is open to all activities throughout the year. People like to watch smart Jammu having beautiful spots

Jammu is the ideal place to put up multi story buildings, flyovers, broad roads to provide smart infrastructure and has a lot of scope of developmental activities. Developing smart Jammu will not only boost tourism industry but also educational, industrial and business actives because the industrialists both at national and international level will take interest to make investments.

Good communication skills are passport to job market. Imparting quality education with focus on overall personality development in child must be result oriented and relevant to the present scenario. It is the time that we have to indulge in our children their creative abilities so that in future they don’t move to different states but stick to its motherland to make Jammu a better and prominent smart city.

It takes a lot of time to develop a small city. it is correct time for Jammu to improve its scenario in education and health facilities. Moreover, I labor my point that it will give decent life to jammuites with the smart city status, it will definitely quench the genuine desire of Jammu and I am sure that this will help in narrowing the gap between the two religions and also the mental attitude of the layman.

FERVOUR EARNING

 

Chase the stuff you love to accomplish, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you”. –Maya Angelou
 “Lost in the world, scattered by the wind .No destination, no manipulation, floating in the sea shore, till one day you become conscious and realise what you loved to do?. If you have got to love what you do then, no one can stop you from doing it. There are people who love their job based on opportunity, self–convince or profit based. Nevertheless all of these are justified reasons to stay in a position, they might not leave you as fulfilled as: doing a job you truly love. To understand this concept you have to understand yourself self first.

 Finding the right activity is simply not easy to fill up your dreams. I was on a quest to do something different. A quest, that made me sleep on wee hours under moon light thinking,” what should I do next?” After completing my Masters degree in English literature, then into my elder’s carrier choice made me uninteresting child.  I deliberated that I am not made to be an educator; it gave me a sinking feeling, then venturing into cartoon industry for a short while, these professions did not bring any concentration to me at all. Till I looked outside my work and found that writing is my hobby and the best skill i can expose to the world.

 If what you do outside “work” is your true love and  make it as your career option then you probably want to love what you do, especially if you’re going to spend most of your life doing it.

  One finds a lot of conflict regarding transitioning a hobby into a profitable project. But it’s been done before also! And it’s been done successfully with hobbies far less “marketable” . So, whether you love writing, video games grafting, someone has already found a way to transform your hobby into a pay check.

 Meenakshi Uppal, a young, accomplished talented and creative lady working in corporate sector in Noida left her job that did not give her satisfaction and time to her two kids. She followed her hobby into her full time profession of becoming a good chef.The word got around and soon she had a group of young and enthusiastic ladies who wanted to learn cooking. It is not only Meenakshi but Hariher Kelkar in his mid Forties from Mumbai who worked with Pepsi-Co Company as a sales manager left his job to pursue his hobby in establishing his own agricultural land in khandala at Maharashtra. This profession as hobby has turned his life into profitable project.For some people, working on their hobby is like working on a long-term art project. They do it to learn, to create something beautiful, and in an attempt to attain self perfection. Instantly with all this, a normal man has also learnt the importance of health, home and family. 

Like many others, I was literally thinking of a good quality moment which I surely treasured in my lifetime of journey.  From adolescence, I loved making diaries and scrap books. It was often my pit stop to browse and refuel my brain with knowledgeable stuff. I started conducting my own lessons for being a good columnist.  With the help of diary writing, typing, and collecting topics from newspapers and magazines. Such  things gave me a light that I can be a good writer in future. I enjoy collecting things as well as making bookmarks; I have brought up myself with innovative ideas. Reading has brought me into taking creative ideas on how to put things in proper order and chirp and a lover of nature. I have completely devoted myself into writing now and formatted myself as feature columnist.

If you take advice from people who’ve already done it, you will realise, it requires an added ounce of innovation, creating your own website, listen to the feed backs even criticism from known and unknown  friends., keep it simple and stay true to what you are doing.

When you start on this road following your hobby, you realise your true dream but that’s not enough you have to take actions on your dream every single day. Few minutes of the day can bounce back new ideas. Don’t complicate, simply focus and keep your ideas clear. Put an explicit title to your trade. It’s easy to feel competitive with world but staying true with oneself is the greatest way to succeed in to your work.
There’s nothing more important than listening to inner voice & sticking to it. I want to make a big impact on blog space now and achieve my inner depth. It has become my profession, as a feature content writer to a broadcasting company & a full time blogger.