My Birdoid

And before I knew it, I had hit ‘Send’. The 'Send' button on the birdoid was a bright luscious red, forcing a human of 2035 to think twice or many times preferably, before hitting it. But his face so lingered in front of my eyes that I just could not help it. Well, the birdoid was a mini-spy satellite looking like a bird, which I had built with my own hands as a personal project, to serve important uses in the super-techno-savvy world of 2035. For now, I had to use my birdoid to search for a person Mr.X- one who had escaped with all e-documents of my e-office. X had closed my e-firm sending a false e-representation to the Registrar of E-Companies and fled before he could face my terrible wrath. 

The problem was, I trusted him too much. I had never thought he would go to the extent of building my exact replica to break into the main files I had secured through a human-familiarity-software (HFS) which would only allow ME. And here he was- destroying my own hard labor with my cloned double with my EXACT characteristics to fool the super-sophisticated system! True X would have spent his entire fortune plus borrowed a trillion more in doing this, for, getting cent-percent human-genome matched clone in 2035 came at the highest premium as compared to even a 99% match. Also, I knew though X had gained experience in this field, he was not skilled enough to create a full match. And my software was advanced to the hilt- to allow only a 100% match. One thing was for sure- he had 100% betrayed me.

I decided he needed to be taught a lesson. One he would never forget. My birdoid was out on its mission. It would search the entire world for this techno-crook, and if he would not be found, would even rev-up at escape velocity, leave the Earth and scuttle towards Mars, for several colonies of humans were living in Mars as well. My birdoid would scan all the humans and possible humanoids, distinguish among them, and find the target. Yet I feared the intelligence of the birdoid- I did not know how far my artificial intelligence program would be effective on him. I had expressed all my heart-felt anger and disgust at that abominable person, while talking to the birdoid. If the birdoid's artificial intelligence took over the emotional side, there was a real fear of the birdoid even probably launching an attack on the target. This was a scary thought. Still, in a fit of rage I had bared all facts before my birdoid and before I knew it, had hit the 'Send' button.

My wide display screen showed the images captured by my birdoid whizzing past continents searching for the most wanted. The truth dawned upon me within half an hour- my birdoid had not found him on Earth. It revved up its engines and I could soon see dark expanse of space in minutes. My birdoid had compressed itself to a very small mass and was travelling at one-fourth the speed of light. Within about fifteen minutes my birdoid had reached Mars and was scanning people there. Colonies looked much like on Earth. I almost gave a serious thought to set up my new company on Mars. Demand for services must be booming there, still cost of living must be higher, I wondered.

 Suddenly, an alert message flashed on my screen. "TARGET FOUND" it said. And before I knew it, I saw an explosion on my screen. My birdoid had done what I feared- using its own emotional intelligence, it had launched a precision attack on the cheat. I felt a pang of remorse. A message again flashed- "Don't worry Amrita. I know you did not mean to KILL him and may have sent a different command to me. Yet please understand that this was the only way justice could be done to both of you. You will not go to hell. God knows your ethical position." I was surprised that my intelligence program had given my birdoid such a thorough grounding of ethics, morality and the sense of justice, to almost talk like a Supreme Court judge and philosopher rolled into one. Still, through the surprise, remorse and wonder, I sent a message asking my birdoid to self-destroy. My birdoid sent back a message- "Target had a remote control in hand. I suspect more targets. Allow me to finish my job." I realized the super-intelligence of my birdoid. I was awed to see almost fifty explosions in rapid succession with "TARGET FOUND" flashing at the blink of my eyes for the next few minutes.

It dawned on me that Mr.X had built fifty clones of his, and the remote-control was for transferring the matter in his brain to each of his clones whenever he would be in danger. So that's it! This techno-savvy cheat had tried to stump me and the world, for a fifty more dangerous cheats like him would sure make Mars a very dangerous place. Wait! My birdoid was gain hurtling back to Earth, ostensibly to check if X had planted his clones on earth too to arise when he was dead. Wow, I had no words to praise the intelligence and steadfastness of goal accomplishment of my birdoid. 

Soon it had scanned across continents on Earth and I saw no explosions on my screen. My birdoid said- "Finally, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! X clearly wanted to capture entire Mars for himself even after death and I'm proud to have annihilated him. Amrita, now I will self-destruct. Before I do that, I wish to inform you that I've left my clone on Mars which will continue to survey if X has left more clones to rise after further time-lags. Most importantly I want to say that we need many more humans like you who do good work for the world. May your tribe increase." 

I messaged back-"My birdoid, you have shown tremendous fortitude. I'm proud I invented you, but have to destroy you as well, for being safe from Earth and Mars Police. Don't worry, for you will be reborn in an even better Avatar!" My birdoid said-"AMEN! 3..2..1..." and my screen went blank.

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda

This post was adjudged as the best amongst all the WOW entries & won the WOW Badge here:

Why I love Blogging

I Love Blogging because:

B- is for the BEST use of time, as while I write a new post, I get a tremendous creative boost, which keeps me energetic and happy for the rest of my time- till I post the next one! Time spent BLOGGING is my most exciting time! Truly, BLOGGING brings out the very BEST of my creative side!

L- is for all the LOVE people give me for being a writer, a blogger- since the year 2006, when blogging itself as a concept was relatively new! They overwhelm me with their feedback and encourage me to touch the deepest chords of their heart, over and over again!

O- is for my OUTSTANDING gratitude to the concept and invention of internet and blogging itself! Today we cannot imagine life without internet, and a lover of blogging like me cannot imagine life without blogging, which allows me to pour my heart out on my OWN Space on the wired highway- www.amritasabat.blogspot.com and read OTHERS' heartfelt outpourings too!

G- is for GLORY of being recognized as a world citizen by authoring my own blog! Everytime I look at the Live Traffic Feed displaying people from the remotest parts of the world visiting my blog, I feel elated and proud as a stakeholder in the chugging inter-continental 'Thoughts Express'! Who knows- even a future inter-GALACTICAL 'Thoughts Express' when we build links with aliens! My blog will live forever though I may just be a mortal being...my first post 'I'

G- is for GREAT satisfaction I get by sharing my hopes, confusions, love, hatred, passions with humanity, through my blog. Makes me lighter, happier and simply ecstatic!

I- is for my INDEPENDENCE, which gets floodgates of expression through my blog! You will see this sense of mine reflected in every blog post and I so absolutely treasure this! IT is simply me- no wonder my blog is even named 'I' and I love blogging!

N- is for NOVELTY of expression and styles! My creativity gets wings and expresses freely through my blog with different styles of posts- poems, stories, articles or simply- wandering thoughts!

G- is for GROWTH. My blog gives me the widest avenues for discovering my boundless potential (‘About Me’) and helps in self-growth enormously. Even participating in my first blog contest was a life-changing event for me as I could interact with this wonderful inspiring lady: Sanghamitra Jena: A Woman Entrepreneur, a Trailblazer . Simultaneously being linked to a paradise of bloggers, I get not just knowledge by reading their blogs but also inspiration and motivation to do much more in life and make positive differences to the world at large, often being infected with their sense of optimism and happiness.

Blogging is the best feel-good factor in my life. It is my way of baring my soul, of touching others' souls as well. I love blogging, and whether I win or not, this post has been one of my most satisfying posts so far! :D MEGA Thanks for this chance Miss Malini ( http://www.missmalini.com/mega-haul ) ! Really, my MEGA Salute goes out to you! :)

Tirade of a Bureaucrat

“As you say Boss,

I will do,

This today,

Is my promise to you.”

So saying another officer,

Lived his service years,

Either became dishonest,

Or did nothing in fear.

No – this was not always so,

Lofty was the goal,

Brighter the rainbow,

At the start of his sojourn.

Humble roots,

Decent education,

Nothing appealed more than,

Serving the nation.

Maybe a job too,

Plush one at that,

But the heart’s clarion call,

Could no longer be held back.

Single-minded devotion,

Back-breaking efforts,

Support of parents, pals, teachers,

Optimism, Sacrifice, Sweat.

Clearing the toughest exam,

Of his life,

Dreams of nation-building,

Noble and burning bright.

But the wretched system,

Sucked him in,

His initial zeal and ideals,

Shot down or hushed up.

Either his seniors or ministers,

Or an unfortunate mix of both,

Broke him with brazen threats,

After luring him with money/perks.

“Don’t jeopardize your career,

Shut up and sit,

For your sake and mine,

Your better be complicit”.

And his head hung in shame;

Mother India cried hoarse –

“Another energetic young man,

Has belied all my hopes!”

“As you say Boss,

I will do,

This today,

Is my promise to you”.

So saying this officer,

Lived the rest of his service years,

Similar to scores of others,

Who either embrace corruption,

Or suffer silently, suppressed.

That’s why protect young men and women,

Who do right and bow down to none,

May Goddess Durga’s Shakti descend,

On every officer of our land.

Sanghamitra Jena:: Woman Entrepreneur, A Trailblazer

“She took the path less trodden.

Lo and behold!

She made it a blazing trail!!”

Sanghamitra Jena’s inspirational story is one which everyone in this world must be told. Starting from just Rs.40, 000 capital in 2004, today her travel firm “Eastern Treasure India Tours” has a turnover of a whopping Rs. 1 Crore! She has recently been awarded with “Prerana Award” by OTV (Orissa Television), was featured in Forbes India magazine and also won “Woman Entrepreneur for Tourism” Award by TiE. I was first introduced to her incredible story by Mr. Subroto Bagchi, Co-Founder of Mindtree, who was speaking to enthusiastic MBA students at XIMB in 2010.

In his own inimitable style, Mr.Bagchi enraptured the audience with her story. Inspite of having gone through an immensely troubled private life and having battled a hostile ex-employer’s team, she gathered unimaginable courage with rock-solid family and good colleagues’ support and went ahead with her own enterprise as a 35-year-old single woman. Later I searched all internet links about her, talked to my school-friend Gopal over Facebook and found to my greatest surprise, that SHE was his eldest sister! From him, I learnt still more about her! Yet I learnt the most from the Lady herself, who is today a woman entrepreneur par-excellence!

Sanghamitra’s journey in the hospitality industry started in the year 1992 after joining a ‘Guide Training Programme’ by Tourism Ministry. Though she favoured assignments like her 35 male colleagues, she was refused. Alongwith her four female colleagues, she was told that since it was a male-dominated society, men would only become guides. The feisty lady took it in her stride. After getting guide license, she joined a Bhubaneswar-based tour company. Sanghamitra was the guide for an American lady Lyle Lawson, who after standard Bhubaneswar-Puri-Konark guided tour, asked for more. Sanghamitra described all the breathtaking mountains, rivers, beaches, forests, rich tribal-areas that Odisha proudly comprised of. 

She asked-“Mitra, have you gone to these places?” Sanghamitra replied-“No Ma’am. In our office, they say- U are a lady and U can’t go far on tours. Respect society’s opinion.” Ms.Lawson said-“Let’s go to your office”. There she said-“I’m excited to hear of Odisha’s beauty. Now I need to go on a totally different tour”. So the higher-ups made a costing of an 8-day-programme. Ms.Lawson insisted on adding another person’s cost to the programme. Sanghamitra’s bosses were aghast that she wanted “Mitra” to accompany her! They obviously contested this. So, Ms.Lawson extended her business-card and said-“I run a tour company in America. If I could come all the way from America to a small part of India on my own, why can’t Mitra be the guide INSIDE HER OWN COUNTRY? You are insulting me by saying she is a woman and cannot handle difficulties. Mitra will be my guide, else I’ll have no business with U”. Later on the journey, she said- “Mitra, all men will suppress U. Do ONLY whatever U want to do. Don’t listen to anyone.” Ms.Lawson has till-date been Mitra’s strong pillar. Sanghamitra has recently returned from a one-and-half-month stay at UK, hosted by Ms.Lawson! An invite to America for 2014 has already been extended! And accepted!

After this, Mitra’s wings opened. She travelled far and wide- all alone, to expand her company’s business right upto the North-East, Gujarat etc. She was made the Tour Division Head and established company offices in Calcutta, Delhi and Chennai. For the next decade, she slogged hard creating programmes, collecting worldwide travel agents’ info, coordinating among hotels, ticketing, passport provision etc.

However, in 2000, her immediate boss left. Then she had to face several problems with management. When she decided to leave the job, they tried to malign her by sending an e-mail containing false information. After learning of it, Sanghamitra asked the management to forward the same to her. The condescending men said- “This’ll hurt you. Why you want it? Go home and relax.” The daring woman replied-“Sir, you only see hurt for me. But I can see only business in this e-mail- I will use the 3000 e-mail contacts to make my own empire stand.” Her strong words echo- “Thanks to my ex-employer who gave a blow on my face. Without that, I may’ve taken life easily. But now, let me prove that I can give a blow back to him.” My Salute to the spirit of this truly brave Lady.

 As she resigned from her job in July 2004 on the one hand, on the other, the ONE MAN whose support she wanted most at this trying time, her husband of fifteen years, decided to leave her to her own life. This was a turning point. In her own words today-“Marriage is an achievement, and divorce is a second achievement”. Having spent almost all her savings for her erstwhile family life, she was left with only Rs 40,000. Sanghamitra had stubbornly rejected dowry property during marriage. So now Sanghamitra’s parents blessed her with Rs.30, 000 for her new venture. She spent all this money in travelling to Delhi and other places and rebuilding contacts. Ms.Lawson wrote a strongly-worded letter to Mitra’s ex-employer-“I’m cancelling contracts with U. Wherever Mitra goes, my company goes with her.” Similar sentiments were echoed by several world-tour operators. Her sister provided a printer-cum-scanner-cum-fax-cum-phone. Another sister kept her cyber-cafe open throughout the nights encouraging her to re-network. There’s been no looking back since she registered her company in 2005.

She recognised that tourists found something wanting in most conventional tours. So, she started with camping accommodation near Bhitarkanika National Park by leasing land from a poor villager, who encouraged her saying-“Daughter, do good for my village”. 

As a woman in tourism, she has got more support from people wherever she goes. People worldwide automatically trust her, as they confide that women will never cheat in business. She says-“Mine is not a commercial venture- this is a rural tourism project. A thousand rupees more will only go towards enhancing villagers’ life”.

Story of a woman who turned all odds against her AND came out trumps. Noble entrepreneurship. From a very noble woman indeed.

http://www.easternindiatours.com/

http://www.bhitarkanikatour.com/

http://www.odishareporter.in/top_news/otv-felicitates-women-with-substance-for-womens-day 

**This post is a part of #UseYourAnd activity at BlogAdda in association with Gillette Venus

Independent Inter-Connections

Many things are happening across the world today. A series of prison-breaks – starting from Iraq, to Afghanistan, to Pakistan – have happened. A calculated domino effect or sheer coincidence?  Does this talk about the shortage of crude sinister brains to run terror activities?  Similar to India Inc’s dependence on those few experienced hands for handling companies in these turbulent times of serious slowdown?

Then of course, there is a chain of recent and frequent man-made accidents, surprisingly across Europe and North America starting with the derailment of the train in Canada, which carried tons of oil and destroyed the entire town – fire fighters could do nothing, with many even losing their lives.  Then the train at Spain’s Santiago de Compostela which was running at double the permissible speed and led to a tragic loss of people heading towards festivities. And then, 38 people were killed in Italy due to a bus-crash.  And of course, a gas plant in Florida caught fire and a plane crash-landed at San Francisco and a Boeing 787 Dreamliner caught fire while parked. And I can go on and on. What do these events say? Are they whispering something or screaming out aloud?  Probably they say that increasingly people in the ‘developed’ Western World are becoming anxious, nervous, about an uncertain and bleak economic future, which may be resulting in a certain angry recklessness – a non-apologetic productivity-hammering attitude.

Not to talk about the rest of the world – ‘emerging’ and less – developed countries. Every single day, natural-cum-manmade disasters are wreaking havoc- landslides and floods in China and India. Videos look eerily similar. Increasing desperate personal attacks on China launched by its own suppressed people – alone, with no mob. ‘Ekla Cholo Re’. Each day scores die in bombings in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan – how cheap are human lives. Syria and Egypt are battling civil wars. And poor India. Dengue and malaria. Rapes. Deaths of small children by consuming mid-day meals. Cheap indigenous guns & equipment- police can’t protect so let each carry his own gun and be trigger-happy. Sand mafia. Liquor mafia. Criminals as MPs and MLAs. Investigative agency as a caged parrot.  Complete unity of ALL political parties- not for India’s development but for keeping criminal legislators’ seats. Bulldozer BCCI Chief.  Smaller states solely on political calculations. Naxal attacks. Impossible ‘Trinity’ – currency concerns, inflation, growth. Policy paralysis. Poverty decreased or have more of the poor graduated above the ‘Kutta-Billi line’?  Bhagawati vs Sen. Food security – no need to work. Free power – just deplete all the ground water.

No India bashing. I'm a patriot. The below only bashes ME at my face-

Meanwhile, Indian PSUs invest in building gas pipelines from Myanmar to hold your breath – China!  An 870 km long strategic cross border pipeline while India’s gas fuelled power plants sit idle on the back of wrong inflated estimates of Indian gas reserves by Govt. of India! 

And India looks on – as Italian marines kill our fisherman, Sri Lankan Navy fire at our fishermen, Pakistan beheads Indian soldiers, China plays catch-me-if-you-can at Daulat Beg Oldi and Chumar, USA snoops on private data of India’s millions and both Britain and USA especially invite Indian Investors to create jobs there while continuing to threaten lowering long-term Visas for our skilled people and UK makes bonds necessary! India is in such a sad situation now that bad news-flows in USA props up our markets and vice versa! Of course we have never been decoupled- waiting like hungry dogs for meat thrown our way by the Fed! And we love imported weapons too, with the French romancing us latest to not stop embracing the Rafale!

And of course, we have the cheap Chinese goods too – a lucrative backyard for the Chinese to run further trade-surplus!  Wow-as if stock piling $3 Trillion of forex reserves already wasn’t enough- now that is called Economic Power! Why would a stockpile of nuclear weapons be necessary when a nation has this much more effective stockpile?! 

No. I’m not a pessimist, I’m a die-hard Optimist- 

Many positive things too have happened. The Palestine-Israel talks in Washington D.C. bring a whiff of fresh air. Will both sides be a wee bit kind and mature for a final ever-lasting settlement for the peace of the world?  Rain water harvesting in Jaipur’s temples. Entertainment & lifestyle magazine for the blind. Pattern change by the UPSC. Pope Francis airing unexpectedly liberal views for his position. SC judgements to decriminalise politics. Bombay HC terming BCCI’s internal probe panel as unconstitutional. Lord Jagannath’s very own FM Radio Station. Durga Shakti Nagpal – we need thousands of such Durga Shaktis.

Well, at the end of it, there are a few good women-and men- who make our nation work.  (http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110807/jsp/7days/story_14347535.jsp) 

No Shah-Rukh style flamboyance, no NaMo style PR, no noise- silently they work towards making India prosperous. My salute to the honest lot- entrepreneurs, teachers, scientists, administrators, social workers, lawyers, chartered accountants and so on. Today they are a rare breed- upholding their professions with integrity and shunning the fraudulent, dishonest ways in which majority of people in their professions are moving and flourishing.

May the honest, efficient, upright grow and may India become Independent in the true sense of the word! In advance, Happy Independence Day!

N.B.: I just noticed that I’ve shunted and levitated between the World and India across this article. But finally I land up firmly in India! You see, home is where the Heart is! Jai Hind!