A class apart!!!

In all walks of life, there are people and there are PEOPLE... but some simply stand out; they ... are a class apart. I am not necessarily talking about celebrities here. In my department in office , a good friend of mine named Ashish Dave stands out from the rest of us in terms of the way he dresses and carries himself, we all acknowledge it and call him "CLASS"... but let me tell you he puts in a lot of effort to keep the reputation in tact. Then, there are PEOPLE as I mentioned. They will stand out among a million others and their charm lies in the fact that they can do it effortlessly. This article of mine is about a guy who I truly believe is A CLASS APART.Now, I am not going to give away the name so easily. Let's have a build up to it. Just imagine yourself in a situation( say a discussion) with some poeple whose expertise about the topic of the discussion is unparelled. Are you sure you can stand your ground? Are you sure you can still impress and emerge a winner? I can bet my house on the fact that 95% of the people who read this article will not give an affirmative answer to both the above questions. Now, the person I am going to write about can claim this... actually he doesn't need to; for almost every Indian Cricket lover will vouch for this.
Saturday nights are normally TV time for me and I watch the Idiot box till late in the night. I am sure the TV feels happy because there is someone in the room to whom the adjective in the earlier sentence suits aptly. So, while surfing the channels,I happened to get a glimpse of IBN Lokmat. It is a Marathi news channel. I know no one will believe me when I say that I was watching a News channel at 12.30 in the night but the interview that was going on caught my attention. I have always admired this perosn's word power and usage of words-flawless, simple and elegant just like a diamond ring. The way in which he speaks is as smooth as a baby's bum ( please excuse the Sidhuism). But then, all this is in English, I never knew that he spoke Marathi. Frankly speaking, I know Marathi and can understand the language well but if you speak too fast and use very complicated words, it will become a bit tough for me to grasp. Nevertheless, the power of this genius' style and flow of the interview held my attention for the entire hour ( you should appreciate this considering the comment on my attention span in my previous post). I understood each and every word he spoke( hats off to me....). This time though, I was impressed by the man's outlook to life, the simplicity , the poise, the calm and a charm that is unique to him. I loved the way each question was answered- clear thought, good rationale and extremely humble mannerisms. The man I am talking about is none other than Mr. Harsha Bhogle... he truly is a class apart !!!!
The man with no experience in International cricket does stand his own in front of the modern day legends like Sunil Gavaskar , Wasim Akram etc. and all that with absolutely no effort whatsoever. I am not easily impressed by anyone nor do I want to be anyones fan but I truly respect and admire Harsha Bhogle far more than the cricketers themselves.
I am happy with the number of people who have read my blog and am in particular not interested in knowing who were the people who visited and read the posts. However, this article makes me think a bit differently.
I would simply love it if Mr. Harsha Bhogle were to read this article ever and comment on it for then my blog will also be what my title for the post suggests " A CLASS APART".

Roads

The title looks a bit unusual; especially if the person writing the post is someone as ignorant about worldly matters as me. After about 15 articles, I have realized that none of the posts have anything worth a thought. If anyone has read all these posts( I know I am being optimistic); please make it a point to let me know if any of my posts was thought-provoking. I would like to confess that ,if that was the case, it was purely unintentional.

So, let me make inroads into ROADS!! For all those who do not know me, my attention span is not more than 10 minutes. I can't remember any instance in my life where I have concentrated for more than 15 minutes at a stretch. Conversely, if I find a thing interesting enough to pay attention to ( thats as rare as Hailey's comet) , then I tend to remember that for the rest of my life. One such rare occurence happened in school when my geography teacher was teaching something about Indian states. She said," The ratio of the roads to the total area of the state of Kerala is 11 times better than that of Madhya Pradesh(MP)" and she related that to the literacy levels. I found the observation pretty interesting and it has stayed in my head ever since. I will come back to this later.

Now that I have completed my education(don't mistake it for knowledge), my day is all about going to office , coming back and sleeping. The distance from my house to office by road is about 40 kms, I am sure its less than that. However, if I take a bus, it would take me around an hour and a half to reach home. I happened to talk to my friend in the US once and he said he travels more than what I do, in terms of .However, the time he takes is a mere one- fourth of what I do. As a result, he has time to relax, and has enough energy left to spend the night with his girlfriend... ( one skype I mean... don't get any ideas). What about the people in Mumbai like me? I am zapped of all energy and enthusiasm by the time i reach home... so are the many Mumbaikars like me. Imagine a scenario if we could have had freeways here, I could reach home atleast an hour early and pursue some interesting hobby but that not being the case leads to frustration, and in general not much left in you by the time you reach home. This frustration , I am sure , creeps into the life of people who face a similar plight day in and day out... and definitely sows the seeds for some unhappiness. Did you ever believe " Good Raods could lead to a peaceful life?". If not, what's your take on it now.

Let me go back to the example given by my geography teacher. The literacy rate in kerala is almost 100% , MP is nowhere close. The fact that there are developed roads plays an important role in the development of these states... and ensures an educated next generation.

Recently, I read an article in the Mumbai Mirror ( A popular daily newspaper in Mumbai) ; that a pregnant lady lost her child because the Auto she was in ran into a pothole. I believe its high time, the authorities and the govt understands the plight and does a good job of the roads for " Good Roads mark the Road to our progress as a nation." This thought could be as stupid as the previous posts you have been subjected to; so please feel free to vent out the frustration for making you read such a long article in the form of comments... and let me assure you one thing; I won't go the MNC way and scan your comments before displaying them.