I am beginning to dislike the word sorry. Its just like a mask – hides everything behind it and offer you a straight face. This word is used so often these days that I wonder if it represents “feeling sorry” anymore. Maybe we should no more use the word “sorry” for making show repentence. It’s only good enough to apologize for not switching your cell phone to silent mode during a meeting or to give a $50 dollar note for $5 cab fare. It no more moves you to forgive someone but only make you move yourself to make way for someone.

I have learnt that to apologize is not to say a mere sorry but to throw open your heart and let your genuine guilt show. To apologize is just not a promise to make amends but a sombre plea for repentance. To apologize is just not saying ‘I won’t do it again’ but to share why nothing could ever bring you to do it again. What move people is not how often you apologize but how you apologize.

I am not suggesting that apologies should come with elaborate melodrama. But I think that they need to sufficiently verbalize your regret & repentance. A mere 'sorry' at times does a great disservice not only to others' feeling but to your emotions as well. It leaves you wondering what more you could do to make someone yield and other to wish only if you could have done a little more...

There is a popular saying that “To err is human and to forgive is divine”. I think what it doesn’t say is “If you know how to apologize right then you can turn every human into divine”.

It was raining pretty hard outside. How I figured it – no not through floor to roof glass paned slide door to my balcony. That was shut with curtains drawn. I heard the rain…in one of those moments when TV volume fell off for the reason I don’t remember anymore, I heard the rain. Rain is a chatterbox, she talks and talks and talks continuously. Doesn’t matter if you are listening or not or interested or not, she just keeps talking in that beautiful modulated voice. And she has a few other tricks to catch your attention coz if constant talking can’t impress you then those occasional lightning will definitely leave you awestruck.

But I didn’t walk out immediately after hearing the sound of rain. I vaguely remember I went out to the balcony looking for something and there she had me. It was that fresh breeze blowing that made me go like one of those guys in TV ads for ponds and lux. Scent of rain has captivated me fully in that moment and I never got back to the room (but for fetching my laptop a little later). I just took the chair lying in the balcony and let that fresh breeze make my day.

Rain is not something rare here, what’s rare is walking out to meet the rain. When people ask me about the weather here am mostly at loss of words. Afterall, in the mornings you get out of your air-conditioned flat into the air-conditioned-cab that drops at your air-conditioned lobby so that you could take the air-conditioned lift to your air-conditioned office. For meals there is that air-conditioned passage from air-conditioned lobby that takes you to air-conditioned restaurants. In the evenings again something air-conditioned will get you to somewhere air-conditioned. And when you at home, you should keep your doors shut so that air-conditioners work properly because that’s what they say in manual. I wonder how much fresh air I breathe these days, may be all my lungs get is just this 'conditioned' air. And now as I sat in my balcony with that cool wind blowing right across my face I realized what have I been missing all this while.

I could remember my childhood days, the whiff of fresh air that comes along with rains was not a stranger in those days rather it was like grandkids of of our landlord who used to visit their grandparents every summer vacation but spent most of their time playing together with me us. Back in those days when I was growing up, there were no air-conditioners and we didn’t use to shut our doors when it used to rain ( not always I mean). I never really figured, was it because we didn’t want to or because we couldn’t. "We couldn't" because if it was to rain then it was pretty much a certainty that power would go off. Usual explanation used to be that some tree has fallen over power cables somewhere and so supply is disrupted. Inverters were still not in must-have lists then and so we used to keep the doors open to let the breeze cool things. And trust me that nice and fresh breeze used to make up for everything but the cricket match that one cant watch on TV because of power-cut. It was just so magical. We do have some trees here that flutter as strong winds blow but in those days when trees outnumbered people in university compound sound of all those trees going wild in those strong winds is an experience that I wonder I could ever have again in the concrete jungles i live in now. I wonder if calling that surreal or magical would be exaggeration – i guess not.

Back to present - I can still hear distant sound of lightning but rain has stopped now, so has breeze. All I could listen to now are the water features across my building, the TV inside the room which was on all this while I was sitting outside and noise of air-conditioned cabs making their way to air-conditioned lobbies as people decided to go and grab a meal or a movie at somewhere air-conditioned.

Why I won’t celebrate if Slumdog Millionaire wins an Oscar?

I finally saw the movie that world is going ga ga over - Slumdog Millionaire. And there are two people associated with the movie who deserve compliments – Frieda Pinto coz she looked ravishing and Vikas Swarup because I liked the way he presented the basic idea of the story that life at times teaches you much more than what years spent in universities could.

But unfortunately that’s where I will stop with my compliments about the movie. What about AR Rahman’s music? Well, it didn’t help that just a day back I had seen Delhi-6 with some excellent music by Rahman and if you ask me - Masak-kali or Jai ho? Well, masak kali for me, i don’t think any Indian walked out of hall humming jai ho.

As for the movie’s portrayal of India – well, I don’t remember another movie that was such a comprehensive collection of everything ugly about India. Everybody in department of tourism spending millions on ‘Incredible India’ campaign must be running for cover after watching this movie whose commercial success could undo all the branding they may have created over years. But yeah I won’t hang Danny Boyle for showing what he did because as few of my friends have strongly insisted – what he showed is what exist in India – it’s real, it’s the other india which lot of us see very little of these days but we can definitely not deny its existence. And they are right, what Danny Boyle showed is the other India. But I can’t help holding a grudge against him for dividing Indians into the ones who have never jumped into a shit-pool and the ones that did. I also hold a grudge against him for being so selective about his depiction of our country.

What if I promise to show you a rainbow and then show you a blue streak in the sky. But that’s not rainbow – it has 7 colours but see am just showing you a part of Rainbow, the blue part. So technically, you can’t deny am right – blue is part of the VIBGYOR that constitutes rainbow but guess you would still feel cheated and that’s what I felt after seeing slumdog. I saw just one shade of a multi-colour country and I know I can’t fight those who insist that the shade shown is actually one of the many that form India but I still feel cheated. Just think of those who never saw a rainbow before and when I showed them blue they just accepted that rainbow is nothing but a streak of blue – for many who have never been to India, this movie may just be what India is all about. The commercial success of this movie could well be the worst advertisement of our country probably after Mumbai terror attacks.

But may be my fears are misplaced, after all it’s just a movie. Should Indians take pride in this movie –I don’t know about others but I can’t take any pride in this movie by an Englishman that seems to be celebrating the poverty, crime and filth in India. I can’t join that celebration. But then in India – we really take international recognition a shade too seriously and a lot of people have embraced this movie as their own given all the golden globe and academy nominations but I fail to see what recognition are they seeking and recognition of what.

I want to make it clear that am not trying to wish away the poverty in India – it exists and we all hope one day people in our country will not be living in such sub-human conditions as many do today. Maybe, all am saying is that I saw this movie -I tried hard to like it and I couldn’t. So, may the best film win the Oscar tomorrow but I wont be rooting for the Slumdog Millionaire and if it indeed wins the award, despite all its Indian connections, its not going to make me feel any good.

Few of you may have wondered sometimes why in your class 6th or 9th examination papers – one word answers only had one mark while the essay type answer always carried 5 or 8 marks. After all, one word answers were always the more difficult ones and more accurate test of your knowledge – you either know the answer or you don’t. With essay type questions, even if you beat around the bush in not too distant vicinity you always had a chance of scoring 2-1/2.

But I guess it was probably because most important questions in life could never be answered in one word. Is it right or is it wrong, is it true or is it false – these are valid questions only in study of sciences and nowhere else. Least of all in life, which is a work of art spanning generations. Sometimes we see things in our lifetime which seems wrong and there comes the temptation to paint things black and white but we forget that in the grey of life – a touch of black or white is merely a part of continuum and not an absolute event.

It’s like mixing colours in a palette. You want to make grey – you put some white, then some black you realize the grey is not dark enough and you put some more black and may be some more white later. Now, our lifetimes are just long enough to witness a touch of white or black and based on our limited exposure we mistake things to be right & wrong or black and white but its only when we look at things in their historical perspective that we realize that what’s in the palette is neither black nor white - its grey and that’s how it will remain.

Lot of us point to various things which seems unfair and say look that’s a wrong but then life is never fair or just at any given point in time. It’s always skewed one way or the other but what it does is that it shifts weight as years pass by and so when you average things out over years life still seems fair.

Say for example the reservation for backward or draconian dowry laws for women, they may not be just but probably they are justified. Because the wrongs today are meant to set right the wrongs of yesterday. A generation pays for the wrongs of previous generation or the other way round a generation gets compensated for sufferings of the previous generation. At no point in time, what prevailed was absolutely fair and just but if we aggregate all the points in time may be all that happened was justified.

All of us must have heard the story of the blind men and the elephant. Each blind man touched a different part of elephant and made their opinion about what an elephant is like but none of them got their description right because all of them focused on parts but none of them remembered to aggregate those parts. And that’s why I sometimes hesitate to answer in absolutes on how I view certain events because they may just represent a dot on the bigger canvas of life. May be it’s worthwhile to step back and hear what others have to say and look beyond what’s obvious to your eyes before you step forward and put forth your view.

Probably photo frames are the happiest being in the world, after all they are always smiling – always, irrespective of whether there are people around or not, whether its day or night, whether times are easy or tough. Visit any home and you will find one of those photo frames smiling at you. Sometimes a solo face, sometimes a bunch of faces - sometimes those faces wear a broad smile and sometimes a mirthful laughter but one thing is sure they are either happy or very happy.

Few of you may say that am misplacing the credit, which should lie either with the smiling faces or the fantatstic cameras that capture those smiling faces. But I differ, do those faces always smile – no, The cameras also capture pain and distress but do those sad, distressing photos ever find their way to photo frames – never. They may adorn exhibition halls or newspapers or your private album or a folder in your comp or a CD in your shelf but when it comes to photo frames it’s always the smiling laughing happy photos that end up there. As if it’s some kind of utopian land that only lets in the eternally blissful souls.

May be the comparison is a bit contrived, may be it’s not but then sometimes it doesn’t harm to let imagination run wild and let it weave its own fantasy. After all, improbable fantasies are still the best place to take a break from the rugged reality.

It was a summer nobody expected and least of all the young sun for whom this was supposed to be the first summer. He took over as “the sun” last monsoon from his father after bad health prevented him to keep up with the demanding daily routine from dawn to dusk. It was a low-key bginning for the young sun, monsoons proved to be a playground for the clouds overflowing with rain and he knew that he was easily overshadowed. Then came the winter, for days snow, fog & mist reigned and sun was forced to take an involuntary Christmas break. But all along he remained patient and kept waiting for the summer that held great promise to him.

He had grown up listening to umpteen stories of summer splendor and summer-time heroics of his forefathers. His grandpa used to tell him all these stories. They called his grand pa ‘white dwarf’, a name probably derived from his long white beard that complemented his perfectly white hair and his dimunitive build. People say his dad will become a white dwarf too – that’s the natural course of aging for every sun. But for now only 'white dwarf' for him was his grandpa, who used to tell him those great tales every night. A few of those tales used to be about the bravery in face of cruel winters or ingenuity when challenged by crazy storms but mostly those tales told a story about the splendid summers when sun held reign. So he grew up to believe that summer is that time of the year when no one can challenge the absolute authority of the sun, a time when sun is at his glorious best. His grandpa also told him a few tales of those tyrant suns who misused the authority and scorched the earth and mistreated her during their summer rules but all those stories always ended with a good sun displacing the bad sun and deep in his hearts he knew that when he gets his chance he will be the good sun. And it was these tales and promise of proving his worth that made young sun keep his calm and patience all through the deafening monsoon and harsh winters while waiting for the summer.

And then one fine morning when he got up and looked at the calendar the page was turned and it was summer time. And so he dumped his suit, took out his bright T-shirt and went out expecting appreciative glances. But realty was far different, that morning was slightly different from winter mornings as there was no fog or mist and snow was long gone but he could still feel the chill and when he looked down it was still dark and it was still dark because of a bunch dark clouds that were blocking out all the sun and warmth. And this was the beginning of a summer which had surprised everyone with lack of sun & warmth.

On the first morning itself he recognized one of the dark clouds who were part of that bunch; he was not a new arrival rather he has been around since last monsoon. He had first noticed that dark and handsome cloud on one of those cloudy afternoons during the monsoon. As rains took a breather, the newly crowned sun tried to announce his accession by shining through and that is when that cloud first came in his way. It was as if he was marking his territory by refusing to let the sun shine – rain or no rain – and that was the beginning of a duel between them for the attention of earth that lasted rest of the rainy season. Sun remembered clearly that during those cloudy-rainy days that piece of cloud was always his marked foe and how he had wished that he could make him disappear and shine through but then it was not to be and the sun forgot all about it as monsoon gave way to winters.

Winters brought its own challenges; none of his grandpa’s tales had prepared him for hours of grind to break free from the morning fog that used to gobble up all his time till mid-day and the frustration of yielding to evening mist as early as late afternoon. But even during those times that dark cloud, overstaying his welcome after the departure of monsoon, did manage to cast his shadow a few times on those rare sunny mornings when sun succeeded in making an early imprint. But the fatigue of continuous duel with elements of winters made sun ignore those transgressions. After all, summers were just round the corner and the sun was thoroughly convinced that the summer will set everything right or at least so he wished.

And so when he first spotted that dark cloud ruining what was to be his summer, all these memories came back to him together with lot of bitterness. He did give a few days to those clouds to clear out, hoping they have just strayed on to his way but they refused to budge. It was as if they were the crusaders who were out to convert this season into a disciple of Rain Gods or a group of bullies who have been instigated against him by that dark cloud or may be just a group of guys who held personal grudge against him. As the days passed, the young sun saw his patience wear and frustration grow and finally unable to deal with the problem himself he decided to seek counsel from his grandpa and so he wrote a long letter to him telling him all about his struggle and frustration and a summer that was seemingly spoiled and requested him for an immediate reply. And next evening as he returned home, he did get his reply that read as follows:

Dear son,

I think there is one thing that I forgot to tell you and that is – “It’s not the advent of summer that signal sun’s reign rather it is sun’s reign that signals advent of summer”. Summer is not a panacea to all your problems rather it’s a celebration of all your efforts to solve all your problems. A turn of page in the calendar doesn’t signal arrival of summer, nor does the arrival of summer means that all your problems will just disappear rather it’s up to you to ensure that by the time that page is to be turned you have vanquished all your foes and doubts and you are shining bright.

Dates or events by themselves can achieve nothing; they are just a reminder for you to make efforts so as to achieve what a particular day may mean to you. If summer meant so much to you, then those dark clouds were needed to be dealt with and done away by the time summer heralded. says .Look at the earth, people celebrate Harvest Day but that doesn’t mean that they just hope that their harvest would be ready on that day ,instead they plan and prepare for to make sure they can celebrate that day.

Nothing in this universe is yours until you have made efforts to claim it. There would always be old & new clouds that will try & cast a shadow on your joy and clouds are not to be blamed for that – that is there karma – your karma is to fight with them, make them disappear and claim your share of the earth that needs to be lit bright. And until you have done that it’s not summer no matter what the calendar says.

Hope that helps

Love
Grandpa

When he finished reading the letter, he changed back to his night suit and then took out all T-shirts from his cupboard, the ones he was wearing since the day he saw that calendar show summer, and replaced them with his winter suits. As he went to bed he knew that his summer is not spoiled but only delayed and it’s up to him to shorten the delay.

“PM condemns blast, appeal for calm” read the breaking news on cnn-ibn as I sat watching webcast of the channel covering Delhi blasts. And just an hour after listening to brilliant soliloquy of Naseeruddin Shah in “Wednesday” I just couldn’t help feeling frustrated by that appeal for calm.

Do we need to maintain calm? Do we need to show resilience? Do we need to arrest them and then law find its own course?

A bloody NO – We gotta find these people and butcher them – Do an Israel on these terrorists. I think its time – with blasts in major cities becoming an alarmingly frequent happening – our leaders can’t just issue an appeal on calm, condemn the blasts and raise some decibel levels about cross-border support. We must DO something about it for God’s sake. In less than 50 days there have been blasts in Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Delhi – and we wanna call ourselves an “emerging power”. I would rather say never before were we more weak and vulnerable.

9/11 is among the most daring and bloodiest terror attacks but just look at the way US reacted to it. Palestinians may or may not have a case against Israel but try a terror attack on them and there are booming tanks that is Israel’s response. Whether its Russia in Chechanya or China in Xinjiang– Superpowers don’t respond to terror attacks with calm they respond with a heavy hand. They respond to destroy the perpetrators – they go across borders to do that and its time we do it too. Super Powers are respected and feared at the same time – but from Pakistan to Bangladesh to Nepal – no one seems to give a damn about self-proclaimed superpower called India.

“Lessons have been learnt in handling post-blast situations” said Rajdeep continuing his coverage and I couldn’t again help feeling irritated by the irony. Why “Post-Blast” – when will our police, agencies learn pre-blast lessons that can help avoid them.

“People have become numb to blasts” commented some other TV Journalist. What do you want people to do – a Naseer – take out demonstrations, may be BJP workers will do it. But ain’t this government of the people, by the people? Do they need demonstrations from people to know what needs to be done? Or do we need to take up arms and march to Islamabad ?

May be we need someone like Narendra Modi at the helm, someone like KPS Gill in police – people who may not be favourite of Human Rights organizations but when choice is between human lives and human rights – maybe its better if we care about the first. Rights are subverted and some innocent are compromised but situation we are in can only be corrected at a cost and longer we wait costlier the whole setting right process will become.

I know the lame-duck PM and spineless government of India will do more than paying lip service but I just wish that they had guts to do something more…..

Been a long time since I wrote…a very long time I should say. I was busy is not a reason, it is just an excuse because I was quite busy even earlier when I was far more regular here.

I think I just lost touch and that’s a dangerous thing to do. It’s far more dangerous than losing focus because losing focus is merely getting distracted but losing touch is letting distance come in between. And we all know bridging the distances are far more difficult then getting over the distractions…

But, am back now or at least that’s what I am trying to tell myself and I hope that for once am right about it.

“Can you see today?” I asked him.
“Well, what do you think, I am blind? I can see everyday, it’s just that on few days all I can see is darkness” he replied.
“And is there a light at the end of tunnel today?” I asked him smilingly. You may later feel that this was a little mean but two of us have come a long way for me to be overly sensitive about his situation.
“Well, you think you have such a handsome face that if I can see I would call you instead of some young pretty lass. Now would you pour me a coffee.” he said laughingly. He loves to laugh at his jokes.

He is a unique case. He is suffering from occasional blindness. Now, I don’t know if a disease like this is even remotely considered a possibility in medical science but for him it was a reality that he woke up to everyday. There are days when he can see a day in all its glory and there were other days when all he has to work with were shades of darkness. There is no method in this madness, he could see on a Monday and go without vision for 3-4 days or can play tic-tac-toe with sight with each getting alternate chances. You can think of him as a blind who can see on some days or someone normal who turns blind on several days.

“You know Siddhartha I think I am unfortunate in a fortunate way.” he quipped as we sipped our coffee.

I knew what he is talking about. “Well, that’s one way to look at it, you could even call yourself plain lucky, not many people who can’t see, sleep with a realistic hope that when they will get up next day, they would be able to see.” I replied.

“I know Sid, not to have something is unfortunate in its own way but when you have something but you are constantly living with a fear that it would not last, sometimes it saps all the joy of owning it. There are people who are born blind, they have never seen a rainbow they can never tell what a rainbow is like. World is merely a collection of words for them – it’s sad but then they don’t feel that acute pang of loss when someone says aloud how beautiful the rainbow is. But I know what a beautiful sight it is to look at the nature putting colours on sky with single brush-stroke and so in that moment of disability I feel cheated. Once that moment pass I thank my stars for that I have at least seen what a rainbow is like and I can definitely see it again. And trust me, it indeed is reassuring. But Siddhartha, insecurity in vision and momentary frustration in blindness; they just end up ruining too much.”

“But that’s not right, why do you worry so much about tomorrow, why not just let yourself deal in today? Why try and insure joy for tomorrow and in the process end up spoiling the today?” I offered him some seemingly wise counsel.

“Because its human nature and I am one. You know what man strives for – Happiness - it’s different from joy. It is lasting and comforting. We never plan for joy, we always plan for happiness. I wish I was a gambler, staking everything on the present, saving nothing for future. But I am not. When I look at the morning sun, I want to get used to its pleasure only if I can promise myself that I can have it everyday. But the moment, doubt make its way in my mind, whispering in hushed tones that tomorrow while the sun may still be there but for me it could be a dark day, I just don’t know what happens to me. I no more care for the sunshine at that moment – I see no joy, all am left with is self pity.”

“Hmmm, you know what you should do, you should instead absorb so much from the moment that it last you a few days.” I said trying to give him instant solution.

“Siddhartha, Ask someone who lost someone close or faced an impending loss. And you would realize that one can never get so much from someone that he wouldn’t miss him when he is gone. More you get, more you will miss. Loss has something about it which can never be compensated by over-filling. And that’s why we all fear loss. That’s why we all fear living a moment to the hilt because when that moment is gone, the emptiness hits you like a rock. Insecurity is just a messenger of loss. What I fear is my loss of vision. I lose it every other day but that doesn’t diminish my fear of loss - it only heightens it. Fear only grows with time. You can try and not flinch in the face of fear but denying the existence of fear is mere immaturity.”

I couldn’t disagree with him. We all grow up try being heroes or supermen. We forget man is fallible, he does get scared. We preach heroism but moment someone takes off his superman mask and come down from pedestal of strongest and wisest – it becomes difficult to tell them what to do. All along I was trying to tell him what a perfect person would have done, but the moment he pulled out his certificate of imperfection, put it in front of me and asked me – Now that I am imperfect tell me what should I do – I was suddenly lost for words.

But he was not.

“You know Siddhartha, it’s very strange, but I am more relaxed on the days I can’t see, probably because I think hopefully tomorrow won’t be as bad as today. Its hope that keeps me relaxed. But on the days I can see when ideally things should be better, things are worse because what plays constantly on back of my mind is that tomorrow would be worse than today. I spend hours thinking what I would do when I won’t able to see tomorrow. It’s as if vision is merely a preparatory camp for blindness. I never really figured why Tomorrow is so important but it is. They all say what you have today is more important than what you can have tomorrow but all my life I have realized what I can have tomorrow has always been more important for me than what I have today. I will sleep a happy man through all the strife today if you can promise me happiness tomorrow. Why is tomorrow so much more important than today, Siddhartha?”

“Probably, because life is actually a collection of one today and lots of tomorrows. Everyday we wake up to innumerable tomorrows looking into our face. A tomorrow that we have not seen, we don’t recognize and which can completely undo all that today may bring. Just think of it, Tomorrow is like that superpower that in a single sweep make all that we cherish today insignificant. Come to think of it, you are right, a terrific today can be thrilling but it’s the knowledge that tomorrow has been secured which would actually sooth our nerves.” I paused at this moment to look at his reaction.

He was smiling and I knew what he was smiling at. What I had just said was diametrically opposite to how I have started but both of us have been through this before. Arguments are like battles, both parties are just concerned about defending their line but conversations are like long walks, even if you start on two different sides of the road you end up getting to the same side and it never matters who crossed over, no one really cares about it.

“But as I said, I might be unfortunate but in a fortunate way. At least there are days when I can see light at the end of the tunnel. Just that you always want a little more than what life brings you and I am no different. Probably one of these days I will find a promise of tomorrow that can keep my today pretty and peaceful. And I guess then it would all be fine.” he said smilingly.

And I just smiled back. His blind eyes were beginning to see a dream and I was not about to disturb that dream.

As news agencies flashed the SC verdict this morning, I felt a little disappointed. Because two wrongs never make a right. ‘Centuries of oppression’ can never be undone by ‘decades of vote-bank politics’. All political parties rushed to welcome the decision. I knew what kind of crap Congress and Left would dish out but when BJP came out with a ‘me too’ kind of statement, I felt like going back and launching my own political party. And I indeed, spent time thinking about a logical and sensible political agenda that should be the basis of a new political movement.

But somewhere deep down I was also shaken because I wondered how come the wise men at Supreme Court failed to rise to the occasion and bell the reservation cat that has been let loose by our political caricatures. Sense of despondency came because since I am convinced that it is beyond combined intellectual capability of our political buffoons to analyse and address the problem of caste injustice in a sensible way, so my only hope was that SC would use this opportunity to set things right. But after taking 4 months since closure of arguments, if all SC could come up with is just a nod to quotas then it would have been really sad.

I must have slept as a troubled soul, had I not chanced upon this piece on rediff during my usual surfing routine.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/apr/10quota10.htm
And, if this is true then my confidence in judiciary has increased by leaps and bounds. Let me outline what I found heartening:

“You cease to be OBC when you are educated and attain graduation. Test of the OBC is social and educational backwardness. It says "and", that means if you are not educationally backward you are not OBC. The court has accepted the argument that if you are able to graduate you are not entitled to reservation."

I would say this is a remarkably intelligent and logical point. Way back in 2006 when I was still at IIMA, my biggest grouse against reservations was why reservations in Post-graduation? If you can get into an IIT by merely flaunting your surname, do you still need more crutches to get into a post-graduate degree. If you can’t walk on your two feet after 16 years of state-supported crutches then your are not disadvantaged but just plain incompetent. And if indeed SC in its judgment has carved out reservations in post-graduate courses then it’s one of the most wise decisions I have been witness to in my lifetime. Frankly, it was frustrating to see how nobody can notice something so illogical.

"The 1993 criteria to decide 'creamy layer' amongst OBC section says that people with landed property, all government employees above Class II, all OBC families with monthly income of Rs 20,000 (gross annual income of Rs.2.5 lakh and above ) etc. are barred from availing any reservation from now onwards,"

This is again a welcome decision though I have my fears that in the ‘land of jugaad’ (India) people would find a way to hide facts and forge documents to create an alternate reality to circumvent this clause. But well courts can do precious little about that. But I am all for reservations for economically backward and even if only economically backward OBCs would benefit from this ruling, I think it’s still good. What would have really pained me is son of an IAS officer studying at most expensive public school seeking an admission to IITs by claiming backwardness. Only backwardness I can notice in that case is moral backwardness.

I found another interesting information in a article in Indian Express:
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Yes-to-affirmative-action-no-to-mindless-quotas/295151/

According to this piece:

“it is a very welcome judgment as the Supreme Court has given its nod to a new survey, which takes into account not only the caste but also the economic indicators to decide backwardness.”

Now if indeed SC has suggested that government undertakes a proper census to (i) Assess actual percentage of OBCs & (ii) redefine “backwardness” by taking into account both caste and economic factors. It is again a nice thought but as they merely suggested this to GoI and gave them absolute powers to determine who should be OBC, we can be absolutely sure that Government of India would do absolutely nothing about it.

And finally I also read somewhere that SC has indicated that impact of reservations on society needs to be reviewed every 5 years and list of beneficiary casts be revised. Noble thought once more but unfortunately we know our political apparatus would hardly do anything meaningful to meet the spirit of this recommendation.

But cheers again to SC for clarifying the meaning of backwardness and saving at least the institutes of highest learning from being sacrificed on the altar of vote-bank politics.

PS (Friday evening): My latest understanding is that the graduation being cut off point for backwardness is only part of Justice Bhandari's judgement and probably GoI will not be obliged to follow it. Sigh.....