CCS Experience

There are some analogies between girls and boys. Girls keep thinking about their dream man (‘Sapnon ka Rajkumar’ in the tackiest terms) and boys about their dream job. Sadly none of these exist.

The following post is on special request. For the birthday girl.

CCS (centre for Civil Society) is a non profit NGO which is working to make this country a better place to live. Through their ‘I, Society and Public Policy’ seminars, they try to enlighten the youth of the country to work for its betterment. But sadly, this time they had a participant who was way too stubborn for anything. It was a big shock for me not to be selected for the previously organized Hindi version of the seminar as all my friends got through it but thankfully, was spared the double embarrassment as I made it for the English one.

It was a truncated 3 day non residential seminar for the NCR participants and residential for the outstation ones. One of the sessions was a documentary depicting the sorry state of the autowallahs and how they get stuck in the vicious circle of financers, just because of the government restricting their licenses, with no such curbs on other vehicles which out number the autos 100:1.

The successful deregulation of Telecom sector (I have sympathy for the telecos though as this tariff war has wounded them pretty badly) was used as an example and parallel conclusions were drawn for the autorickshaw operators in delhi.

Tales of the Night fairies, a humorous documentary based on sex workers in Calcutta was shown which did lead to some awareness for me on this topic as previously I was of the thought that Prostitution should be banned but the fact is that man’s lust will never end, nor will there be enough opportunities for alternate livelihood for the women and there are some who are into this not because of compulsion alone. Legalisation would help in improving their conditions though the conclusion I derived was that not doing so would further encourage rapes, molestations etc.

People found Parth’s public seminars sleepy but those were the most engrossing for me and I really had to control myself not to argue, question the facts mentioned as then the objectives of the seminar won’t have been achieved, atleast for the greater audience as I had an enormous number of questions in my mind coming out form the notes I made.

The biggest eye opener was just one small statement by Parth.
“By giving Capital Punishment for a rape, you are giving an incentive to the convict to kill the victim” (murdering the victim would become a necessity then so that he leaves no evidence behind which can be traced back to him).

I always thought that it’s justified to do away with some lives of some in the interest of the people but there I did realize that it isn’t possible that we might not get any alternative solution to the problem if we intend to find one.

I really wanted this to get me out of my slumber, make me realize my responsibilities but sadly it didn’t. I missed CL classes, college too for this. After MSF, RYLA it was the third place I went to but this one instead made me feel that I am an engineering student and should focus on it only. This doesn’t mean though that I have started studying. On the way to the seminar to become a more responsible citizen, I broke half the rules in the book as I did overspeeding, lost my way, drove through traffic jams on foot paths, without helmet (got stolen), jumped red lights but ultimately got challaned only for taking a U turn that wasn’t allowed.

Reading all this you must have realized that it was surely worth attending but it got me totally confused between the conventional wisdom that is the principles laid down by the Indian society and pragmatism of the current scenario. As I had a fair amount of knowledge on all these previously, my opinion changed but not completely. Right now, my brain feels like a hardisk which underwent a file conversion from NTFS to FAT and midway the power got disrupted. Hence the only conclusion I can draw is to accept this confusion as an inherent part of my life and don’t do anything to change it and take whatever comes in my stride. All my IAS aiming friends, this seminar is a must for you as you only would be making these policies later which matter the most, though just 2 years before retiring.

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I just know 2 ways of living, either to tease people and make fun of whatever they stand for (I am sure I do stop before the other person wants to kill himself/herself after giving up the idea of killing me) or to stay shut. People who think I can get them into trouble have no idea what potential I have. I have videos of Rangoli singing ‘Tum to thehre pardesi’, someone sneaking out with his gf at a mall (she literally ran away at the stroke of seeing the camera), Mayank carrying a tray of lassi glasses for us at Red Fort, him and Mr. Pefrect sharing the plate and licking fingers at our recent sojourn to the over hyped ‘paranthe wali gali’ in the hope that we will accept their logic that ‘isse pyar badega’. Also my photograph collections too aren’t behind in damage potential and it’s beyond my control not to let this all out in the open and create chaos. So, folks the bombshell could explode any moment.