The Boiling Frog

The Dusherra of 2018 wasn’t really a pleasant one for our residential complex, as various families were preparing for the celebration and getting into groove of the festival of lights suddenly a cry from one of the flats changed the entire mood of the celebration. A 40 yrs old married man having a kid of around 5 yrs had hanged himself to death in his bedroom. A suicide had happened in our building for the first time and for what? A guy on a previous day is buying grocery for the house and waving hand at few people around. In the morning he gets up does his regular chores, ties toran (archway) on the door, drinks water, enters his room and that’s about it.

After few days it came to light that he wasn’t getting regular salary at work and had some issues in his marriage. Due to these reasons giving up on life. Now that was quite disturbing.

I went into a thought spin on how could someone end his life because of few unpleasant things happening around, was there a better way of handling the situation.  

A Jiah Khan commits suicide due to a broken relationship.

Chetana Pandit, who people looked up to for her bike riding skills who was an official coach to Anushka Sharma, Kareena Kapoor, Katrina Kaif etc. for riding bikes committed suicide due to relationship issues and inability to achieve what she wanted from life.

Bhaiyuji Maharaj, a spiritual guru who was almost responsible for enlightening life of others wasn’t able to manage his home front and finally shot himself dead.

Robin Williams, the happy and pleasant man of Hollywood who brought a regular smile on his fan’s face committed suicide due to depression.

The National Crime Record Bureau report a figure of almost 40,000 students committing suicide in the last 5 years. Most of the reasons been Drug Addiction, relationship failures, depression etc.

The list just seems unending.

While people are really becoming very intelligent with so much of knowledge at disposal but in the endeavor of been knowledgeable and intelligent somewhere the element of having the right wisdom is getting missed big time. Everyone seems to be in a hurry of reaching somewhere or achieving something and somehow have lost the art of pausing and thinking about what we are actually doing.

We take up a new job, start a new relation, become a part of a new friend’s group, work toward some social cause, start a new addiction maybe smoking, drinking etc. Been the curious kinds we like to start new things every now and then. We not only start but even ensure others know it as well. Now with the social media becoming an integral part of our lives, whatever people start is known to all. We start a new job it gets updated on Linked-in, someone start a new relation or get married it gets updated on Facebook, a new friend’s group goes on Instagram. So now we not only start things but we also ensure people know about it. But the same thing that we started if we aren’t able to sustain, then things becomes awkward.

 We are naturally very hopeful kinds and we always hope things to get better and in an endeavour of waiting for things to get better we lose our power of endurance. This reminds me of a nice anecdote I had read sometime back. It was referred to as The Boiling Frog Syndrome.

THE BOILING FROG SYNDROME...!!

It said that put a frog in a vessel of water and start heating the water… As the temperature of the water rises, the frog is able to adjust its body temperature accordingly… The frog keeps on adjusting with increase in temperature…

Just when the   water is about to reach boiling point, the frog is not able to adjust anymore…
At that point the frog decides to jump out…
The frog tries to jump but is unable to do so, because it lost all its strength in adjusting with the water temperature…Very soon the frog dies. What killed the frog?
Many of us would say the boiling water…
But the truth is what killed the frog was its own inability to decide when it had to jump out…

We all need to adjust with people and situations, but we need to be sure when we need to adjust and when we need to confront / face..
There are times when we need to face the situation and take the appropriate action…

While we just need some amount of intelligence, hope and curiosity to start anything new but it takes a lot a wisdom to realize which thing needs to be stopped and which can still continue.

Take that well deserved pause, take a stock and allow your wisdom to do the job.

It’s better to have a timely exit than an undesirable end.

 

Who's Responsible

The Dahi Handi of this year turned out to be quite eventful with our elected leaders doing some awful stuff to lure the potential vote banks. One such popular leader who incidentally happens to be an elected MLA was Mr. Ram Kadam.

Apparently his Dahi Handi was supposedly one of the most expensive in the city. One event when this elected leader did everything possible to display his power and popularity. Celebrities were lined up like no one’s business. Roads blocked for the celebration, thousands of watts of music, govindas grooving to the beats of the DJ. Complete entertainment, entertainment and entertainment. Mr. Ram Kadam was on all-time high, completely doped on power. With thousands of people around the power play was at its peak. In the endeavor of engaging the audience the power spoiled MLA made a statement saying that if any of my folks like a girl and if the she says a “NO” the elected MLA would ensure the girl is picked against her wish and would be presented in front of the guy and his parents. The entire crowd applauded to supportive nature of the MLA.

Wow! I mean really WOW, how caring and supporting MLA who is ready to abduct a girl just to keep the guys of his constituency happy.

Within few hours the video of this instance went viral. Criticism started flowing in from all possible corners. Politics / Non-Politics, Press Media / Social Media, Men / Women, Social / Corporate, from all possible avenues Ram Kadam received flaks for his irresponsible statements. The anger sustained for the next couple of days. His resignation was demanded, the dahi handi forum debarred his dahi handi for the forth coming years, the NCP women wing were seeking a police complaint against him. Not a single news channel sparred him for this talk. Wats app, twitter, facebook completely flooded condemning Mr. Ram Kadam.

So much of anger, on whom? Mr. Ram Kadam? Who is he? Is he really a super big leader that the entire country got angry on him? What’s the anger for? It left me thinking.

While the elected MLA was definitely at fault but the anger wasn’t only on him but the anger was on the mentality, the tendency that even today people are having. The anger wasn’t only against Mr. Ram Kadam who said a statement but it was against the Male Chauvinist Person that was residing in him and for all the other MCPs prevailing in the society. While I have few friends who have a different full form for MCP but for this blog I will stick to Male Chauvinist Person.This outburst of anger in the society was a result of the constant fear that was dwelling within us. The fear of these MCP morons who are ready to stoop down to dangerously low level to satisfy their male ego.

Yes! Its fear

Yes, I have a fear when my younger sister wants to go for a late night party, what if there is a MCP in the party. I fear when my daughter is coming by a school bus, what if a MCP is driving the bus. A woman notes down the number of the rickshaw and pretends that she is talking to her brother or father while in rickshaw, because she fears a MCP riding the rickshaw. A woman fears getting missed calls from an unknown number, what if a MCP is stalking her. While there is no doubt about women becoming stronger and independent with every passing day but the fear remains as these mindless morons don’t cease to exist.

When a man joins karate class its termed as martial arts classes, the same karate taught to women become self-defense. WHY? Why is there a need to induct women driver in a OLA / Uber? Who has created this society.

One of the important cadre that builds the society are the leaders that prevail in the society. Unfortunately, today we have leaders for the likes of Mr. Ram Kadam who stands on the dias and extends his support in abducting girls as if it’s an object. When one Ram Kadam talks about abducting girls, he is actually giving birth to lakhs of Ram Kadams who are hearing him out and appreciating it. Guess what, he is an elected leader, people actually voted for him.  

My anger is not against the people who voted for him, but my anger remains on people who didn’t vote at all. At present, around 60% voters actually cast their vote and the rest 40% don’t vote, maybe because they aren’t physically present or they have lost their faith in the concept of voting. Very disappointing to see that people don’t vote for the right person. Wrong people win the elections because of absence of the right voters.

When I ask these so called educated lot who don’t seem to vote, the standard answer they have is all are corrupted, all are bad etc. Come-on guys even when we gave any type of competitive exams which had multiple-choice questions (A, B, C and D), the deal wasn’t to choose the right answer but to choose the closest answer. Same applies here, we may not have a perfect candidate contesting in our constituency but still we will have to do some research and study to select the best amongst what is available (no NOTA pls). The deal is simple if you feel all are useless stand yourself as an independent candidate if not then at least take a qualified decision and vote for the closest best. Be a part of the system to change the system.

All these champions who don’t go for voting are the first ones to join a candle march, human chains or a peace protest when things go wrong. Wake up guys for how much more time are we going to treat the symptoms, it’s time to treat the cause. Vote for the right person. Vote for safety. Vote for a better society. It’s an appeal to all the 40% non-voting population, it’s time to show the wrong leaders that we still exist and we can make a difference.

Un-Almond

‘Main Kaha Hoon’ a dialogue that had the ability to give the much deserved twist when the movie would turn dull. The 80s and the 90s were filled with movies having these memory loss sequences.  Sometimes it would even mean a comedy situation wherein one hit on the head would be a memory loss and a repeat hit on the same spot would be regain of memory. Over the year this twist became too very repetitive and eventually died a natural death. Off late, when I was watching Judwaa-2 again I came across this phenomenon where the villain losses his memory upon a hit on the head by the hero and eventually regains memory by a hit on the same spot. While these memory losses and regains used to be the game-changers, the importance of memory was much more beyond movies.

During my childhood, the importance of memory power was critical to an extent of intelligence been mistaken to memory power.

At school, being a mediocre student had quite a few challenges that only the mediocre students would understand. In school usually there were 3 categories of students.

The first categories of students were those that studied for percentages. They were absolutely oblivion to the phenomenon called FAIL. They were the scholars of the class. Favourite students of all the teachers and even the preferred monitor types. These were those folks who were used as examples of the parents of category 2 & 3 students. They were seemingly the elite class population.

The second categories of students were the extreme opposite. They were the perpetual repeaters of the class. Their parents didn’t really have much expectation from them. Even if they would pass the exam it would be time to celebrate. A typical back-bencher and attending school because they were sent by their parents. This category would actually know the importance of 35 marks in the exam. On a lighter note, the underprivileged type.  

The third category was my category, the mediocre ones. They were neither scholars nor perpetual repeaters. These folks had too much of society pressure of entering the elite class and a constant fear of not slipping in the underprivileged class. We used to get worried when the scholars would keep taking supplement after supplements during exam while we struggled to fill the main answer booklet.

The third category students usually had to undergo too many therapies to ensure we also become scholars. One formula our parents used on us was to soak 2 almonds overnight and give us to eat early morning. Almonds were known to increase memory and we all had the dose of these tasteless almonds. While the times were changing and the thrust was moving towards understanding things, still this by-hearting potion was part of our routine. Our parents failed to realise that our low grades were primarily because of lack of interest rather than lack of intelligence.

Bottom line all ate almonds, either to sustain their performance or upgrade. It was a part of our nutrition and played wonders in our life. As we grew our memory power got so strong that we started remembering everything.

Good events, bad events, achievements, failures, heart-breaks, betrayals, kindness etc. We started remembering it all.

In my profession, one challenge I usually have while conducting workshops is to make the participants unlearn. People seem so much convinced with their own thoughts and their own ways of working that seldom they are in mood to consider any type of change in the regular scheme of things.  One usual anecdote used during workshops is the Chained Elephant syndrome. The story goes as follows.

As a man was passing by the circus, he suddenly stopped amused and confused by seeing that a small rope was tied to the front leg of elephant to hold him there.

He thought to himself, “No chains, No cages. It’s obvious that such huge elephant can easily break this small rope and be free anytime he wants but for some reason he did not.”

While he was thinking, trainer passes by him. He stopped him and asked, “Why this elephant just stood there and making no attempt to get away?”

 

Trainer replied, “Well, When he was very young and much smaller we used the same size rope to tie them and at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they started to believe that they cannot break away and this rope can still hold them. So they never try to free.”

Like that elephant, many of us go through life hanging on to belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed once before..!!

It was the memory of the elephant that kept giving him messages that in the past he had tried breaking free but couldn’t hence the trap.

 

The problem is we are all trapped in the memories of the past. We move from an old house to a new house and keep missing the old house, people and the ambience of the old house. We move from one job to another job and we end up either comparing the new job to the old one or keep missing the old office group. We move on in relationships as well, in spite of moving on we don’t move away from the memories. We are neither present fully in the current relation nor in the past. It seems challenging to get-off the old memories.

I happened to meet an old friend of mine who have been an avid photographer. While I was enquiring about her photography updates, she informed me that she had limited her photography to bare essentials. Upon further probing she mentioned that while she was used to clicking lot of pictures while travelling in order to create memories she was actually missing out on experiencing the places, smelling the soil, feeling the air, touching the stones, grasses etc. She was actually missing out on just closing the eyes and getting absorbed in the new place. This gave me a new perspective on creating memories vis-à-vis having an experience.   

Memories traps us in the past, experiences evolves us for the future.

Until sometime back I used to really get upset with people who would perpetually keep forgetting things and activities. It was such a bad sign of been irresponsible and revealed lack of focus in what they did. Their forgetfulness would make them non-reliable as well. However now I feel that these folks are so much blessed that they just keep forgetting things, no baggage from the past. Everything for them is new and fresh. Going back to the game changer scenes of the 80s and 90s, today I keep thinking that a person having a memory loss, is it really a curse or a boon?  

I am now searching for a new dry fruit which would be an antidote for all the almonds eaten so far.

Chicken Sanju Baba

‘If you want loyalty buy a dog’, a statement given during an exit interview when I was trying to retain an employee who was serving notice. Maybe he wasn’t really convinced with the idea of been loyal to the organisation. Post this dialogue even I lost my interest in retaining the employee. Needless to say that I gave him my piece of mind as well. While I never documented this dialogue in the exit interview form, but retained it within myself.

I belonged to a generation where I felt sandwiched between 2 extreme generations. My previous generation were my parents and their contemporaries who spent their entire life into one job and maybe the same role as well. The only exit they were aware of was retirement and their pride remained in the PFs, gratuities and the pensions they had.

In sharp contrast had a ‘generation next’ who didn’t believe in spending more than 2 – 3 years in any organisation.

Millennial have a reputation for job-hopping. Unattached to organizations and institutions, people from this generation -- born between 1982 and 1996 -- were said to move freely from company to company, more so than any other generation.

The data supported this. A recent Gallup report on the millennial generation revealed that 21% of millennial said they've changed jobs within the past year, which was more than three times the number of non-millennial who reported the same. Gallup estimated that millennial turnover affected the U.S. economy by $30.5 billion annually.

Millennial also showed less willingness to stay in their current jobs. Half of millennial -- compared with 60% of non-millennial -- strongly agreed that they planned to be working at their company one year from now. For businesses, this suggested that half of their millennial workforce didn’t see a future with them.

Since many millennial didn’t plan on staying in their jobs, it made sense that they are hunting for new positions. Gallup found that 60% of millennial said they are open to a different job opportunity -- 15 percentage points higher than the percentage of non-millennial workers who said the same. Millennial were also the most willing to act on better opportunities: 36% reported that they would look for a job with a different organization in the next 12 months if the job market improved, compared with 21% of non-millennial who said the same.

Time flew and I kept meeting more and more people who were more interested in the Performance Linked Incentives than Loyalty/Retention Bonus. Even the Offer Letter annexures started projecting more of performance based pays rather than Gratuities and PFs.  

With the advent of newer forms of networking and sociability even the new age relationships started getting measured and affected by performance than loyalty. Loyalty compromised seemed more acceptable as long as the current performance was in the acceptable range. Frequent break-ups and patch-ups have become the outcome of performance based relationships.

Amidst this chaos of loyalty getting overshadowed by performance, one place that comes to the rescue is Bollywood fandom.

One news that caught my attention in the recent past was of a hard core fan of Sanjay Dutt. A deceased fan of Dutt left all her belongings for him.

Mumbai's Malabar Hill resident Nishi Harishchandra Tripathi left a detailed letter about her valuables and a nomination form to the Bank of Baroda's Walkeshwar branch a month before her death to the name of "Film star Sanjay Dutt", Mumbai Mirror reported.

Nishi died on January 15, after battling a terminal illness. The 62-year-old homemaker lived with her mother and siblings in a 3-BHK flat worth around Rs. 10 crore. The family was clueless about Tripathi's will and they got to know a day after her prayer meeting when their legal adviser informed them. I am sure this lady would have had Sanjay Dutt as a teenage crush which eventually got converted into a lasting fandom full of loyalty irrespective of the ups and downs in the life of the actor.

While few intellectuals may term Bollywood fans as crazy but the fact remains that they are a classic example of loyalty that is firstly long term and secondly beyond the rights / wrongs of the person. It’s indeed heartening to see fans gathering below the houses of Salman Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, SRK etc. When Salman was jailed in Jodhpur for close to 3 days his fans travelled with him from Mumbai to Jodhpur, stayed there for 3 and returned upon his release and return to Mumbai. These folks are actually beyond rightness / wrongness of the person, they just love them and choose to be loyal. That’s about it. Period.

One more long standing relation between a fan and an actor was between Khalid Hakimi and Sanjay Dutt. Sanju always been into controversies and a pure border line case of been good or bad. He was a patron of Noor Mohamadi restaurant for decades and once he happened to share a chicken recipe with the owner named Khalid Hakimi. Hakimi immediately introduced that dish in his menu and named it Chicken Sanju Baba, While Sanju was on top of stardom the dish remained on the menu and even when Sanju was jailed still the dish remained on his menu. Rather on the day Sanju got released from jail Hakimi announced free serving of Chicken Sanju Baba to all the guests of that day. Hakimi’s loyalty for the actor remained rock steady even amidst the ebb and flow in the actor’s life. Many more examples that depicts the loyalties of these fans.

All these stories are actually reassuring amidst the performance based and practical approach of the younger and intellectual lot.

The irony of the situation is all these folks who talk about performance based work and relations giving least importance to loyalty factor end up having or aspiring to have a pet dog at home. While these folks don’t believe in loyalty themselves they prefer to have an animal which is an icon of loyalty.

People seem afraid of expressing loyalty and expecting loyalty but not to forget that come what may, loyalty will never go out of fashion.

Save your waters

 

One email from one of my erstwhile bosses and my KRAs changed all of a sudden. The email said “We have maximum attrition in the 0 – 3 months bucket and one of the action points decided on the weekly call is to enhance the Day-1 experience of the new-joiners”. This email changed the course of my work. While I was already doing my best to keep the new-joiners engaged I was absolutely clueless about what to do next for enhancing the Day-1 experience. I was almost on the verge of replying to my boss saying that now the only thing left is to perform a cabaret in front of the new-joiners on Day-1. Off-course having thought this, one flip side of Sachin doing a cabaret on Day-1 would be new-joiners resigning on Day-1 itself.

The new-joiners usually were getting too much bogged down by all the documentation and form-filling activities. The photocopying and form-filling activities sucked the energy out of them. They were confined to a chilling conference room feeling completely lost and doing some crazy writing work which they won’t have done for past few years. With excessive usage of mouse and keyboard these folks almost forget how to write on a paper holding a pen in hand. Even when they attempt writing their full name on the form it seemed like it’s a signature. It’s a day when all the new-joiners would feel they should have a personal secretary who would do the writing and preserving document activity. Another torture of Day-1 were those unwanted people entering the conference room trying to welcome them but eventually ended up invading their privacy. Especially when the reporting manager says a welcome to you, it seems more like ‘welcome to the jungle’ and when their fellow colleagues would come and meet them and then whisper amongst themselves it seemed more like ‘here is one more addition to the banana republic’.

Amidst all this chaos giving an excellent Day-1 experience was becoming challenging. While I was struggling to think what different can be done, I thought of reading few articles around this topic.

While I was trying to copy (rather get influenced), I came across a concept called Day Zero. The new age organisations were calling the new-joiners a day prior to the joining date to complete the joining formalities, form-filling and other mundane tasks so that on Day-1 when the employee actually joins they spend time on a premise tour, ice-breaking and understanding other role dynamics. A new HR concept got added to my general knowledge about HR and that was Day Zero, which meant start of a new journey.  

Now, after almost a decade.

A month ago, I came across this Day Zero term once again, this time in a completely different context. Breaking news that hit the TV channels was that Cape Town will be running out of water somewhere in July 2018. A city will run out of water, are you serious? Something which was a first of its kind news in my lifetime. How could a city run out of water? How are the people going to survive? Were the authorities sleeping all this while?

Just a couple of years ago, the situation could not have looked more different here. In 2014, the dams stood full after years of good rain. The following year, C40, a collection of cities focused on climate change worldwide, awarded Cape Town its "adaptation implementation" prize for its management of water.

Cape Town was described as one of the world’s top “green” cities, and the Democratic Alliance — the opposition party that controlled Cape Town since 2006 — took pride in its emphasis on sustainability and the environment.

The accolades recognized the city’s success in conserving water. Though the city’s population had swelled by 30 percent since the early 2000s, overall water consumption had remained flat. Many of the new arrivals settled in the city’s poor areas, which consume less water, and actually helped bring down per capita use.

The city’s water conservation measures — fixing leaks and old pipes; installing meters and adjusting tariffs — had a powerful impact. Maybe too powerful.

The city conserved so much water that it postponed looking for new sources.

For years, Cape Town had been warned that it needed to increase and diversify its water supply. Almost all of its water still came from six dams dependent on rainfall, a risky situation in an arid region with a changing climate. The dams, which were full only a few years ago, are now down to about 26 percent of capacity, officials say.

The city made mistakes. Last year, instead of focusing on “low-hanging fruit” like tapping into local aquifers, the city concentrated on building temporary desalination units, said Kevin Winter, a water expert at the University of Cape Town’s Future Water Institute.

End result been a City which featured in the top 10 ‘Green City’ in 2008 is counting every drop of water dispersed in 2018. A city surrounded by water all around is falling short of drinking water.

On water front, from abundance to the Day Zero status of the city, Cape Town situation seemed more like a life cycle of a human being. It made me realize the lot many Day Zero s that we may also be walking or galloping towards. Even we have too many waters that support our living and keep our lives Green e.g. health, work, relations, friendships, spirituality etc. We need to take a stock of where we are and how far is the Day Zero for our waters.

Even a person who suddenly gets a heart attack and dies was actually on a careless health journey which he / she was intentionally /unintentionally pursuing.

In the first context Day Zero embarked a start of a new journey however in the 2^nd context the same Day Zero marked the end of a beautiful journey. Any unpleasant ends bring in lot of anguish and pain. While we may lament the loss we conveniently forget the journey that led to this unpleasant destination. We don’t lose a game we just run out of time and opportunity. Take care of your waters until it’s still there.

I wish we all face Day Zero that is alpha and not omega.

Vantage Point

Waiting for the first month of the new-year to end, just thought of revisiting the last month of the last year. One question was constantly been thrown at me. The slightly more urban folks were asking me “how are you bringing in the new year” and the lesser urban folks ended up asking my plans for the 31^st night. Then I realised that the actual intention of asking me this question was they were expecting me to ask them the same question and then they can share their elaborate plans. Quite funny but folks had their own joy in sharing their plans. As I wasn’t sure about my own plans the only option I had was to hear them out.

Come 2^nd Jan and everyone had their own stories to share, I was sufficiently educated on the various ways of celebrating 31^st Dec. Rather more than various ways I could hear various philosophies about bringing in the new year. Few of them which I could remember are mentioned below:

• Prefer bringing in the new year only with family in the house (the family ones)
• ……… With family and friends having a house party (the loved ones)
• ……… Exploring new places every 31^st Dec to see new ways of celebration (the adventure ones)
• ……… Getting high on booze and starting the New Year with a hangover. (the spiritual ones)
• ………  Spending time praying or in religious place eg. Church, temples etc. (the religious ones).
• ……… Visiting theme parks, resorts etc. (the playful ones)

Now amidst all these philosophies of bringing in the new year was a Sachin Kodolikar who didn’t do anything to bring in the new year, it just came by the way. He slept on 31^st Dec night at 11.00pm and got up at 7.30am on 1^st Jan morning. While I was feeling amazing about completing my sleep, for the philosophers I came across as a complete loser. Few dear friends convinced me that I had useless existence on earth as the entire world was celebrating the New Year and I slept off.

Too many opinions were flowing as a part of various philosophies. Every philosophy was equal to one opinion. There wasn’t anything wrong in that as, they were opinionating as per their own philosophies.

Looking at the world from our own world view needs to be re-looked.

Few weeks before, saw this breaking news of Zaira Wasim. For all those who aren’t aware who Zaira Wasim is, she is the famous Dangal star. She even starred in the movie named Secret Superstar. She is a brilliant actress in the making and a very hardworking young talent who proved her mettle through 2 amazing movies. Dangal has even proved to be one of highest grossing films in China as well. Outside of films, she has served as the Youth Ambassador for the 11th edition of the Bengaluru Midnight Marathon in 2017. True source of motivation to the youth of our country.

On 9^th Dec while she was travelling business class from Delhi to Mumbai, she accused a man of molesting her. She reached Mumbai took a video of herself narrating the incidence and posted it on Instagram. The video went viral and the public sympathy towards the girl started flowing from all the ends of the country. The next day, Vikas Sachdeva, 39, was arrested by Sahar police the day after the actress complained and was charged under sections of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 and the Indian Penal Code. The Maharashtra State Women's Commission, the Shiv Sena, the Bhumata Ranragini Brigade and others condemned the incident and demanded action against the accused, while the Civil Aviation Ministry has threatened to put Sachdeva on a no-fly list if he is convicted.


It was quite commendable to see reactions coming in from all possible avenues. Even the celebrities jumped into actions through twitters and instagrams extending full support to Zaira. For the likes of Kareena Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit, Aamir Khan, Shobha De and the list goes on.
 

 Another version to the same incidence is that Vikas had travelled to Delhi to pay homage to a deceased relative, post the prayer meeting boarded the Mumbai bound flight the moment he was on-board he requested for a blanket, instructed the crew not to disturb him to offer meals and dozed off. Yes, he did the mistake of resting his leg on the arm rest of the front seat but that wasn’t with an intention of molesting anyone. Even one of the co-passengers seconded this theory of Vikas dozing off immediately after boarding the plane.

Currently this case is under investigation, however too many loose ends to this case such as why didn’t Zaira make noise at the moment she realized that she was getting molested / if she could make her ordeal public on Instagram then why not to the co-passengers / the molester needs to be an acrobatic genius to sit on the back seat and move his leg seductively on the neck and back of the passenger seated in the front seat. Guess we all should have waited before tagging anyone guilty or innocent.

It’s more than 6 weeks the incident has taken place, while I know that Zaira has won the filmfare award and seems quite happy with the success of her movies in China; I am clueless on what's happening on the front of Vikas Sachdeva.

Post 10 days of imprisonment, has he really got back to work while he is still on bail? Are his clients / customers entertaining him as they used to do before? How is his wife facing the society as the media and celebrities have already termed him as a molester? How is his 9 years old kid facing his friends at school and in his vicinity? For every kid his father is a father-figure. How will this kid react when after growing up he will still face questions about this incident?

Unfortunately, we live in a society where the media does the trial much before even the judiciary understands the case. When it comes to a sexual harassment case, ‘the man remains guilty until proven innocent and the woman remains innocent until proven guilty’ the media seems more interested when the person is accused but somehow disappears when the person is acquitted.


Our education, our maturity, our intelligence empowers us to create an opinion and have a stand point. But these opinions and standpoints need to be basis facts and not on the basis of our own philosophies and public sentiments.
 

May truth and justice prevail in this molestation case and hope the media shows the same enthusiasm if Vikas is proven innocent.  

Be sure of been at a vantage point before giving an opinion.