A Little Match-seller

Hey friends, I came across this great, really touching story which I would like to share with u all.

There was this little girl who used to make her living by selling matchsticks on the streets of Toronto in Canada. In December, temperature does go down a lot in this part of the world. It was Christmas eve & the whole city was looking beautiful with every major street flooded with lights, covered in a crisp layer of snow; every shop looked like having a different theme & there she was carrying bundle of matchsticks under her apron walking on the streets. She hadn’t sold anything that day. She was wearing a thin coat over her dress which was somewhat like in rags. It is true she had slippers when she left home but it was of not much use as they belonged to her mother, which she had no lost running after the carriage to make her way back home. One of the slippers she could not find, and a boy seized upon the other and ran away with it, saying that he could use it as a cradle, when he had children of his own. So the little girl went on with her naked feet which were quite red & blue in the cold. She roamed over here and there for some time until she found a secluded dark place between two buildings; she went there and sat under a tree. She didn’t want to go home; she knew her father would not excuse her for not selling anything and would beat her black-and-blue. Shivering with cold and hunger, she crept along; poor little child, she looked the picture of misery. The snowflakes fell on her long, fair hair, which hung in curls on her shoulders, but she regarded them not. Her home was as good as here she thought with only one roof covering them through which the wind howled, although the largest holes had been stopped up with straw and rags. She had drawn her little feet under her but couldn’t keep off cold.

“Ah! Perhaps a burning stick would give me some relief” she thought. She drew one out –‘scratch’ How it spluttered as it glowed!! It was really a wonderful light. She could feel the warm of the heat. She felt like she was sitting besides warm iron stove and the poor child stretched out her feet as if to warm them. But the joy was short-lived and there she was holding only the remains of the half-burned matchstick in her hand. She rubbed another matchstick on the wall and her eyes fell on the window above. The room was amazing; dimly lit; on one side stood a beautifully decorated Christmas tree; the table was covered with a snowy white table-cloth, on which stood a splendid dinner service, and a steaming roast goose, stuffed with apples and dried plums. And what was still more wonderful, the goose jumped down from the dish and waddled across the floor, with a knife and fork in its breast, to the little girl. Then the match went out, and there remained nothing but the thick, damp, cold wall before her.

She sat down again and lighted another match. Now, she found herself sitting under a Christmas tree which much bigger and beautiful than she saw inside. She looked at the thousand of leaves tapering towards her all looked as if they were greeting her. She stretched out her hand to touch one; and the match went out.

She then looked above at the rising Christmas lights and they felt like the countless stars over the skies. Suddenly she saw one star falling, leaving behind a bright streak of fire. “Someone is dying” she thought. For her grandma, the only one who ever loved her, told her about that. “A soul is going up to God” she used to say. She rubbed another match on the wall and in its dim light she could see a pale looking figure walking towards her. The woman kept on coming nearer & nearer to her until her face became clear. It was her grandma. She became so happy after all those years. “Grandmother,” cried the little one, “O take me with you; I know you will go away when the match burns out; you will vanish like the warm stove, the roast goose, and the large, glorious Christmas-tree.” And she made haste to light the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches glowed with a light that was brighter than the noon-day, and her grandmother had never appeared so large or so beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and they both flew upwards in brightness and joy far above the earth, where there was neither cold nor hunger nor pain, for they were with God.

In the dawn of morning there lay the poor little one, with pale cheeks and smiling mouth, leaning against the wall; she had been frozen to death on the last evening of the year; and the sun rose and shone upon a little corpse! The child still sat, in the stiffness of death, holding the matches in her hand, one bundle of which was burnt. “She tried to warm herself,” said some. No one imagined what beautiful things she had seen, nor into what glory she had entered with her grandmother, on Christmas day.

Our lives are full of surprises. We suffer a great ordeal everyday trying to open that Pandora box. We expect it to be full of happiness, joy. What we forget, is true happiness lies in the small wonderful things which we often tend to ignore. They are not far away but reside around us. It’s just they ought to be identified. One should try to find happiness in everything one does. No wonder he will then have the most beautiful and wonderful experiences in his life. Life is short; live it to the full....

The Lost and Found case of Ruchika Girhotra

So on came 2010 and I did welcome it with a big bang. We desire to leave behind all our worries & problems we had and start the New Year with new zeal; afresh. I too did the same. But unfortunately some things can’t be forgotten easily. The transition phase from 2009 to 2010 was pretty much filled by the news about the Girhotra’s.

We all have heard what happened in Ruchika Girhotra case. It has put us Indians to shame. It has created a mockery out of our judicial system. Special thanks to the media for their special coverage of the incident only after which something (though currently at the superficial level) did happen. The government has swung back into action (sort of). But why let this happen in the first place!!! Incumbent maniacs committing heinous crimes & then using their position to silence every voice raised against them. The Ruchika case if you consider was pretty straight-forward. The then president of Haryana lawn tennis association S P S Rathore molested Ruchika, her family lodged an FIR against Rathore, her friend Aradhana was witness to the incident. I think in a conservative country like INDIA, which is much sensitive to the atrocities committed against women & children these sequence of actions would be enough to acquit the culprit without much difficulty. The Indian government has now passed a resolution that even if a woman comes & say that she has been raped that would be considered as a ‘proof’ against the suspect not just a mere statement. Next step should have been to arrest Rathore, & matter would then be taken over to the court. This is all we expect from our system. I mean this is the procedure that is written in our law books. Simple and straight!!!! Isn’t it???

But what did happen was quite the opposite. The police did lodge a FIR but did nothing. It was Ashu (Ruchika’s brother) who did go to jail for crimes he did not commit. All the false cases of theft were registered against him (in total 11 for which he was later acquitted in all by the court). Rathore was an influential person. A man having big status, money & power. He started harassing her family. Harassed is too small word to define what the family went through the last 19 years. Ashu was used as bait and was tortured; subjected to illegal confinement by Crime branch of Panchkula Police allegedly at the behest of Rathore to pressurize the family to take back the complaint registered against him. Hooligans were made to stand outside Ruchika’s house. They would make taunts whenever she left the house. She segregated herself from the society. Ruchika was suspended from the Haryana Lawn Tennis Association. Her school expelled her without citing any reason; her father sold their house at Panchkula. Finally, on December 28, 1993, Ruchika consumed insecticide. She died the next day. She blamed herself for traumatising her family. The traumatised family left the state fearing more harassment. Rathore went on to become the DGP of police; he was even awarded a medal for the extraordinary service he offered.

Sure the sequence of events turned out to be quite out of the book. India boasts of being the biggest democracy in the world. Our judicial system believes in the notion that ‘no innocent should ever get punished’ (time’s no limit though). Yet, there have been instances when these power-hungry evil social elements making fun of our system. Many cases like that of Jessica lall murder, aaushi murder & nitish katara murder more or less belongs to the similar type of background (all involve high-profile people). I bet you should have seen the smile on Rathore’s face when the verdict came in.

Was he laughing at our system?? Why was Rathore made a DGP when already a molestation case was registered against him?? How did he even get a medal?? Why the government always wakes up only after the media takes matters into their hands??Who is responsible for what happened to Ruchika & her family?? There are many unanswered questions. India is on the verge of becoming the next superpower and this is not surely not how we would like to set an example. In the end last but not the least- What if the next Ruchika might be someone very close to us?? What would happen then?? We need to wake up. Wake up early...

The G-World

Hi friends, the fact that I can reach out to you all muses me.The world now functions as a single unit. The world virtually has no boundaries. We are so connected now .I just came across this book on 'Globalisation' and was literally amazed by the fact that how a certain small phenomenon occurring in even the most remote parts of the world can affect our lives. Lets rewind back the time and go back in 1996.It was nearly a decade after the cold war had ended(with the collapse of the Soviet union).The economy was reviving and the world was no longer divided. A new concept of 'globalisation' had evolved wherein every nation was more or less dependent on other nations for its progress. Everything was going well when a small imbalance sent ripples(make the effect mild) down the world economic structure. The year was 1997.The epicentre was 'Thailand'.

Thailand had a pretty stable economy prior to its decline in 1997.The people were opting for more loans from the bank to invest in more assets. As a result more financial banks were established which took loans from international bodies to cater to the increasing demands. But the notion went wrong. In 1997, Thailand government closed down 56 of the 58 financial banks. The Thai currency, baht had plummeted down by 30%.People now had to pay 3 times to repay the loans as compared to earlier due to 1/3 fall in the currency. The financial houses in turn were not able to pay their foreign lenders and the entire system sort of went in a gridlock.

The Thailand economy took a downturn; the economies of Malaysia, Indonesia got driven by speculation. The other economies in Asia suffered. the prices of gold, copper, aluminium and most importantly crude oil began to fall. This in turn affected the Russian economy which was trying to get out of its self-inflicted morass with the help of funding from IMF(International Monetary Fund-provides funds to economies all around the world).Russia started seeing the down road. It started selling out ruble bonds to bail out its economy. It increased the interest rate on its bonds by atmost 70% to attract the foreign investors. Though Russia was seeing the downfall, people were eager to purchase the bond because of the belief that even if the Russian government was unable to repay the money, the IMF would step in & return their money. More and more investors got attracted and many perceived this as golden opportunity. The big banks took loan from other big daddies to invest more & more.

But what was feared the most happened. The slump in the oil prices in Asia made it harder & harder for the Russian government to return the money. But then the worst happened. The Russian government devalued and unilaterally defaulted in the government bonds. It went down under a bed of massive loans and finally the economy collapsed on Aug 17,1998. The financial houses who had invested had no money and they began to sell whatever was liquid(cash in hand).They started selling assets in financially sound economies like Brazil. The capital started flowing out of Brazil. To keep the money in the country Brazil upped the interest by 40%. Investors also began investing in US T-bonds; as a result their value went up.

Just a small disproportionate in the economy in one part triggered the set of events that in turn travelled through the entire globe. Globalisation sure does bear the resemblance to the nuclear fission wherein just one proper impact leads to the colossal events which ultimately results in the explosion. The 'G' factor affects everyone. Those who wish to be left behind will get crushed brutally. Either you be with it or perish forever.

Just boil it down to individual level- One has access to internet; just by sitting at one place one can do a variety of stuff like shopping, finalising deals, social networking and on goes the list. One can now play a more major individualistic role. The decision you take will affect others. One can purchase shares from stock markets all around the world. They all have become interdependent now, one goes down the others follow it. Most conglomerates deal nowadays get finalised through video conferencing. The Globalisation heavily depends on the power of communication and its real potential lies in harnessing them to their utmost level.

In short welcome to the ‘G-World’!!!!