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“Take a free Stress Test”  was the board on small makeshift table , at this busy market in my city. I ignored it for few days . But my friend got lured by the stress meter, books and the girl counsler.So he took the test , She asked him to hold too cannes connected to the ‘Stress Meter’ and asked some common psychometric questions . Then she interpreted the meter readings to him and hats off to he skills , She sold two self help books to my friend who is hard core non-reader. I too tried my hands with the stress test,but i refused to buy the book she highly recommended me.

Any how , I looked through the books my friend had bought from the “The Stress Test Shop”. They were the same old self help books with some exercises to do better at workplace. Then i came to know it was distributed by the local Scientology outfit. Image of Tom Cruise came to my mind, as he is ambassador of Scientology. I have no offenses against Scientology.  But some days later i read this ad in newspaper.

So it is quite lucrative profession to be a Scientology  counselor.

So the question raises is Stress another niche market?

Yes, I think it definitely is.

Another brand in this category is Art of Living.

Endorsed by Swami Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. I again have no offenses against Art of Living. It has done good humantarian work. Its satsangs might have helped many of us live better. More over Art of Living has become a status symbol.  But the question is ,

Is Stress a market in new India ? Are we consumer of this market ?

The changing India has resulted completely different environment for us , than What it was used to be for our earlier generations. We have our 8 hour plus corporate  day jobs , Which require to put in extra effort to be ahead. To unwind we have weekends  Which generally are ‘consumed’ in going for a movie, going for shopping or going for a party . We hit the bed to sleep, which has no regular pattern, We ‘consume’ sleep too, and often we are sleep deprived.

The living culture/pattern we follow has given birth to the Stress phenomenon. So how to take over stress bye ‘consuming’ medical pills, by ‘consuming’ art of living satsangs.

Do we have some leisure time , Time for ourselves only ?  Without TV,Internet When we are in the pure relax mode.  When we don’t ‘consume’ anything.

Lets be peaceful persons by not being consumer to the every market segment. Lets think carefully how we can adapt to the ever demanding living / work culture.

Some years back when I came to City Beautiful ‘Chandigarh’ . Like everybody who comes here I fell in love with the place. For its planned Living,Gardens, Broad roads with trees along sides. There was hardly any traffic problem those days.
There is a duet Punjabi songs which goes like :

“To drive on roads of Chandigarh is like, paper boat sailing on water flow”
“The decorated round abouts are like , The embroidery done by you “

This was true some years back, when traffic was sparse.

Chandigarh is a heaven for students for its academic institutes,entrance coaching centers,training institutes.It has attracted students here like a magnate. Industry has also been set up here in Chandigarh/Panchkula/Mohali tricity. So almost every Punjabi youth comes here looking for a job. Industry also attracts/recruits people from all over India. Although the Industrial growth has not been so steep here relative to other cities.

Accumulation of people here has given rise to traffic chaos in the City Beautiful. To accommodate traffic administration has to cut down the trees along side one of the main roads to broaden it,has changed round abouts into traffic signals,has improved public transportation system. But still it is unable to contain the rising traffic. Driving at 8-9 PM has become like hell.

The workaround to fight traffic chaos which people like us can do is :

• Car Pooling for offices
• Increase Use of bikes and bicycles
• Better public transportation system

Car Pooling

In Western countries a concept of Car Pooling was stated way back Seventies . It has broadened to SMS based / Web Based Carpooling system, and is quite successful also.

In India MyKoolPool is such venture which provides Web/SMS based in Mumbai and Pune. Maybe there such venture like Commute Easy in Bangalore and other cities too .
We have to give push to such ventures in our cities too and In City Beautiful Chandigarh so that it can be kept beautiful.

Using Bikes / Bicycles
The economic rise has thwarted the use of cars, with exponential rate . Which has definitely made the traffic more chaotic than anything else.
Using a bicycle for commuting is rare by people like us. Although it is common for laborers an economically weaker people.
We need to start a bicycle riding campaign, Such that people like us make lesser use of motor vehicles for common commuting , like visiting nearby places or offices.
Yes I know, there is status conscience setup in our psyche, That is the only reason we don’t use bicycles anymore. But It will be great if we can change this status conscienceness.
Use of bicycle has many advantages like :

• Zero Pollution , It has no Carbon emission.
• Lesser traffic , It does not need a Broad Road .
• Better health, Cycling is a good Exercise for body

Yes , Bicycle is non feasible for commuting to longer distances, But use of motor bike is still more traffic friendly , than a car.

Personally i use a mix of Bicycle and Motor Bike for commuting . I go to office on a bicycle and sometimes on the motor bike. In my previous organization which was near to my living place. I always used bicycle for commuting there. And mind you I was not labeled psycho or My status qoutiont was not questioned. It was welcomed by most of my friends actually. I have inspired One of my friend to ride bicycle. there are 3-4 more guys in my new organization which commute on bicycle. But we are quite a small no. people. We need to start a campaign such that It becomes a trend to ride to office on a bicycle. It is quite common in some of European countries.

Come On , Ride Bicycle a day and Keep the Doctor Away.

Public Transportation
The public transportation system is quite messy in almost all the cities. Either the buses/trains are crowded with passengers, or the the time taken to reach the destination is quite long.
I Wish If we can make public transportation system such that it gives one preference over using Car to commute.
It is only possible if the

• buses/trains are made high on comfort.
• Better routes to the common destinations

Moreover for commuting to office locations , Initiative needs to be taken for Public/Private partnership. Although some corporates have there private commuting vehicles. but they are not much effective. People prefer personnel vehicles over them. I hope public-private partnership can provide a better alternative. As small enterprises can also afford to tie up with public transportation system.

Happy Commuting, People

The headlines today are huddeled with Reservation being introduced into the IIMs and IITs (the premier institutes for giving higher education and management) for Backward and Other Backward Classes (BC and OBC) excluding their creamy layer. There has been mostly anti-reservation campaigns and little pro-reservation campaigns too.But the state has the stick in its hands , it can do what it wants.

Rather than going into same debate whether reservations should be or should not be. I want to know :

Will reservations help in socio-economic upliftment of targeted masses?

Reservation is a just a shock therapy to prevent the damage done by our grass root Public education system. There is no sight of any improvement in Public education system.

I won’t go into statistical details, But what i have experienced 

I am product of an Village Government School in State of Punjab(One of the affluent states of India). The school where i studied was called the best school in the locality, But the study culture there was like, we were made to learn from the help books rather than reading texts. English was started in 6^th grade by Social Sciences teacher because there was no English teacher and After 8^th grade there was no arrangement for English language teaching. There were no extra-curricular activities, no games. It was the time when the school was called in its prime time.

After that the school has gone to worst conditions , the only way the kids clear is by Mass cheating in the exams. The alternative to the government schools are private schools which employ teachers on salaries of 1000 to 1500 and who are product of those government schools. They are called English medium schools , but there is hardly any healthy learning environment.

The economically weaker parents put there kids into Government schools and economically stronger put them into those private schools out come from both schools are almost the same. This is the story of nearly 70% of Punjab and one can imagine the status of other states.

Those to who study in good city schools , are taught good English, are given good environment, are made to take part extra curricular activities. They face the pressure of doing good in the exams in terms of scores . The focus is on getting scores by hook or crook rather than learning. there is no healthy competition ,There is lethal competition. We don’t study what we love. We study what we are made to study. I want to know :

Are there any measures taken to improve the quality of education?

Revolutionary changes needs to be done in Education system, But i don’t think there is any step being taken in this direction because this will have long term benefits.

Improvement in Education system would not fetch votes, But Reservations will fetch them quick votes .

We are amused by the way India is progressing , we are amused the way Dhoni’s are fetching crores. We are amused be the way India’s riches  has made into the Forbes list.

We don’t care how the other half lives, and  Then we are worried about the biggest Internal threat to security are Naxalites. We are amused why they are so evil, we are amused why they can’t be like us.