Love Sex Paisa aur Dhoka(LSPD)

IPL was finally replaced on the front cover of Indian newspapers! You'd wish it was by some scientist who'd won us laurels abroad or the more possibility of some obscure Swami turning sex guru. The new box office hit is a bureaucrat who's name was unheard of until she indulged in LSPD. Madhuri Gupta has gone the way where no Indian civil servant has tread before - treason. All for a bit of love, more of sex, lots of money and tonnes of dhoka.

Yes,she may have been disgusted with a B grade job of translating urdu newspapers at the fag end of her career.
Yes,the Indian Foreign Service had promised her a brilliant career.
Yes,none of that had come true.
No,that does not justify any of the dastardly acts she has committed.

Indian Foreign Service or for that matter any foreign service is battered with cases of diplomats indulging in romanticism with locals. It is an accepted norm. One IFS aspirant in his interview was asked his motivation to join IFS. The prompt, proper but unconvincing reply- I want to represent India abroad. To which he was told in no uncertain words that it was in fact the lure of it being a wine and women service.

Madhuri Gupta is a weak woman. Her first name belies her.
So she may have been tempted for L and S. But, why P and D?.

A weak character.
In the strongest of service.

May my nation pray.

Philanthropists: The Sultans of Change

My father used to say, “You can spend a lot of time making money. The tough time comes when you have to give it away properly.” How to give something back, that’s the tough part in life:

Lee Iacocca

If you have read Fountainhead, you might remember Peter Keating, the ambitious but corrupt architect, asking his mentor,Guy Francon, if he felt contentment at the end of his career. Francon replies in the negative which leaves Keating disillusioned for Francon had everything that he aspired for- fame, money, power..but not contentment.

While Ayn Rand dealt with contentment from the perspective of how much a man really strives to do what he wants and not what people want of him, my view on contentment is more on how we have managed to influence the people around us, the people who need us- four billion of the six billion people on this earth who are deprived of the material comforts that you and me enjoy and take for granted.

I dont know where my discussion with a friend started but eventually we were talking about why it is necessary to build yourself first, professionally and personally, before you try and change the world. Who would listen to us if we stood up and started talking about women's rights, child abuse..blah blah.If Bill Gates makes even a statement on any social issue in passing, people all over the world start discussing it- in the papers, newsrooms, magazines..everywhere.

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The gist being that you can have more influence on changing the world being a philanthropist than a social worker. Quite obviously, the two are different roles and cannot exist without the other. Philanthropists have the finances and vision while social workers have the passion and resources. However, philanthropy, has a power that social work does not have- Dictating the change. Money talks, even in the noblest of causes.

For example, name three prominent philantrhopists and you'd rattle of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Henry Ford.

Name three prominent social workers known all over the world...try going beyond Mother Teressa!

That's also to say that philanthropists get more publicity than social workers. But, I'd rather not dwell on the morality of it.

In the video on youtube, Severn Suzuki the 12 yr old girl "who silenced the world for five minutes", talks of a poor boy in her locality who said- "I want to be rich. Rich so that I can give a home and food to eat to all the poor kids in the world" He realised he would have to be rich to make that change.

People who build careers and strive to make money are often scoffed at.

Dont. For one reason, that it his choice and effort.

Second, at the end of the day, if either of you chooses to make the world a better place-you would be the one talking, he would be the one dictating.