Bengal and the American Revolution

These days, there is a lot of talk abuot gloabalization and the effect that the situation of American economoy has on the economies of countries all over. While the effect of things happening in one part of the globe on sumthing on the other part has increased multifolds with the advancement of technolody and coming closer of the world coz of better transport facilities. But there have been some events where you could see the effect that the, one of them is the part played by the state of Bengal in The American Revolution.

The interrelated events in this scenario are the Bengal famine of 1770, a famine from 1769 to 1773 which killed one-thirds of the population of Bengal and the most famous event in the American Revolution, The Boston Tea Party.

Now coming to the connecting link between the two events:

As a result of the famine in Bengal, 1/3rd of the population had died. This sudden decline in the population set the bells ringing back in England. Military and Administrative costs mounted beyond control in the region of Bengal administered by the East India Company due to a marked drop in labour productivity. There was also the commerical stagnation an depression in Europe following the lull in post-Industrial revolution period.

All this didnt bode well with the economics of the East India Company.Directors of the East India Company in a desperate attempt to avert bankruptcy, sought help from the British Parliament. This led to the passing of the Tea Act in 1773, which gave the company greater Autonomy in running the trade, as it meant that the company didnt have to pay any customs or duty on tea it sold in the Colonies.

While there were a plenty of reasons which made Americans resent the British rule and there were protests but the Tea Act and the resulting event of Boston Tea Party was a major catalyst of Amrican Revolution and till date remains one of the most promiment event of American History.

We can see that not a very important reason behind the American Revolution, but the famine of Bengal can be seen as one of  the immediate cause for the American Revolution. The events transpired as a result of the famine, sure provided fuel to the fire burning inside the hearts of Americans.

Song of The Day:– Raat Akeli Hai Bujh Gaye diye from Jewel Thief

PS1:- Gandhi and India presentation done 🙂
PS2:- Thanks to Pranav Sir for telling me to go look for the effect of Bengal in American Revolution, this was quite an interesting find.
PS3:- Think I can be more regular in posting now!

We! The Indians

We are a funny lot, us the Indians!! We find pleasure in things so strange that leaves the whole world amazed and confused. We find so much pleasure in urinating and spitting at public places that nothing can compare to such pure heavenly experiences and then there are so many situations where we just fail to notice the rampant humour and happiness which is present. We can at times be so self possessed that we stop caring that there is a land by the name Kashmir which needed to be handed over to Pakistan and we also keep crying over the 200 or so lives which were lost in Mumbai while not noticing the death of 9 poor terrorists. But we can also be quite caring at times, taking care of shit aka the household waste from western countries and dumping them in our country so that those people can live their life peacefully and in cleanliness after all we are used to sitting in the fields, what would some petty waste from so few people in these countries matter to us.

For instance how can we fail to see the happiness which we should receive when we have an actor who was booked and served a sentence in jail comes out to contest election. He i being termed the messenger of Gandhi in this age for the youth and of course he should be referred to as one. Dont we all rmr that he was the part of highly successful venture which professed about Gandhi and I am pretty sure that he must have been the only person there sitting with the Writing staff serving up as an encyclopedia about Gandhi and his philosophies. Irony of the situation is that some fools try to write him off, saying that he shouldn’t (or can’t) contest elections and as a result angering his supporters. Now here, I would like ask those dear friends of mine,  if we can have so many criminals in politics then why can’t we add another one to the list. After all he made us proud by making a film on Gandhi, thats all we need in a politician ain’t it?

Then you have another set of fools who even try suggesting that may be we could try caring less about International Accolades and recognition and try being satisfied with the recognition we get in our land and not let people who are heroes in their own rights in the nation to the level of paupers in other nations just because they are from a different culture and speak a language very different. After all, the only thing we need in our heroes is a certification from some global body, because its only such bodies which can recognize the real worth of anybody or anything. Don’t you think the people from West Indies are such fools, how could they not make such a fuss about Brian Lara not being amongst the top batsmen in Test Cricket! :O Look at us and all the hue and cry we made just to get a certain someone called Sachin Tendulkar, who just has only 28,000 runs and only 83 centuries in International Cricket (OMG what a shame, not even 100!! 😦 ). I mean what can these nos and view of millions of Indians who consider him “God” mean against a list released by Wisden which placed him at the 25^th position. We are colonized people and we need the recognition from our Lords sitting in the office there at Lords to give their stamp of Authority and failing to do so, we can’t do anything but be cry babies because they are so important than the millions of us. Its beyond common sense how West Indians(they are also sort of Indians atleast the name says so) be so ignorant of those high powers and don’t crib about their batsman being there at the top of list. Such a laughing stock they are 🙂 We also really enjoy it when the best movies made by us, which at times have changed lives of people, made people laugh, cry and see things like never before are allowed to compete in Oscars in secondary categories like “Best Foreign Film” after all its always an honour to be recognized by them!

As everybody knows that we are very cooperating people and tend to accept everybody with open arms and hearts, we have been receiving people from all over the world. We are such loving people that we have made it a habit of marking people who don’t identify with us as our own and showering all our TLC on them. That’s why we get all mushy mushy and start blushing when Bobby Jindal kisses his wife in public, We keep calling Salman Rushdie to India, because it is real sons like him who by telling the world about all the problems in India are doing us a favour. We also have no problems in accepting Slumdog Millionaire as our own product, coz after all its based in India, and it has actors like Anil Kapoor & Irfan Khan in it, doesn’t matter that the director is a foreigner coz he knws the director of the movie, its only the actors who make the movie, isn’t it?

Song of the Day :- Delhi 6 from the namesake movie!

PS1:- Saw Raaz-2 today and the movie is definitely worth watching, one of the best in the genre in recent times.
PS2:- Did nothing significant on Republic Day except sleeping!! 😦
PS3:- Have my Gandhi & India presentation day after tom!! 😦
PS4:- Finally some cricketing action involving India starting!! 🙂
PS5:- Should sleep now, its 5:15 already and hav a class tom! 😦
PS6:- Thinking about doing the tag Anks tagged me for!! 🙂

Update

Warning : Long Post

Its been ages since I posted anything on the blog, 2 months 9 days to be exact. Since moving onto wordpress this has been the longest time duration for which I havent written even a single thing, so thought of posting just a little update of things gone by in the past 2 months. Most of the time in this period, it can be safely assumed that I was really busy, which is a very rare phenomenon in B.Tech but then 4th year also comes just once and also the placements, which can be said to be the trophy of 4 years of Engg, so I finally did some work and studying and as a result the blog of mine got neglected.

The 2 months which have passed have been quite eventful to say the least.

Starting the chain was CAT, 4 years after giving the JEE and AIEEE, it was time again for an all India competitive exam and would say this was one exam which I enjoyed, mainly because I wasnt too interested in it, so had no pressure whatsoever and ofcourse I luvd doing the Quant part in the mock tests which I used to give. Well but I guess taking it too lightly took its toll, screwed up my DI section in the paper, reading 4 questions wrong and as a result missing out on a few calls, so had to settle with just one call from IIM-L. Now people are after me to start preparing for GD/PI. 😦

Coming to the second and the main thing in this time, PLACEMENT.. Maa-baap combined of everything in B.Tech. The single most important thing for almost everybody who comes to an Engg Collg!! Quite a few people told me that it is quite an interesting and testing time and should say I wasnt disappointed at all. Testing and interesting were there in no less quantity, with the market situation going from bad to worse and the placements in our college being the last in India, after all the IITs and NITs, it was quite an ordeal getting a job, but thankfully I got through this phase without any major setbacks. The week which passed from the day placements started to the day I was placed must have been the toughest week in my life, never ever have I been so disheartened, felt so low, came so close to breaking as in this particular week. One special thing which happened during this time was, although the days were passing very quickly but when we looked back at the time, 4 days used to seem like 4 weeks. The whole thing was so eventful that everyday seemed to consist of so many days at once. Though was finally relieved to get rid of the gruesome schedule of waking up at 4-5 in the morning and getting ready to be displayed before the companies feeling like prostitutes, each one having his price, hoping to get picked for more. Seriously a time never to be forgotten.Now that I look back and see that I got placed on the 7th day but those 7 days seem like eons when compared to a month since then which seems to have passed in a blur!!

Though one good thing which came out of the placement process was, people got closer. If Felicity’08 was the first thing which seemed to being people closer to each other, then this was another thing. All of us used to assemble together and have BC sessions in the evening after one more disappointing day. The tag of apne log grew from about 10-15 people to atleast 30 people. The only good thing to have come out of this phase (ofcourse except getting placed) otherwise it was just a nightmare, facing failures each and every day.

I also had a (not to be proud of) record. Till the day I got placed, I had the maximum number of interviews with each of them proving to be failures. 😦 Though finally on 18th Dec got placed in Ivy Comptech!! 🙂 Also I would like to thank my friends for all the help and support they provided me all this time, I will never forget PK taking me for a walk after the Capital IQ written or Adi waiting for me in front of NVidia office and taking me to Suraj or Maroo and Chand calling me after the NVidia, I was seriously heartbroken that day!

Another interesting thing about placement was, I was the least serious the day I got placed, I reached the venue of the test 15 mins late, just didnt have it in me to write a test again. And I wont believe that I got placed when I recieved the call, PK n Sachin two guys called me to give the news and my first reaction to both of them was

Abe mazak kyun kar raha hai yaar!

And after this whole, finally got a chance to go home after a long 8 months, went home last time in April and the stay at home was every bit as relaxing and pleasing as this phase was gruesome. Also went to Lucknow, my place, met a few of old friends and sumbdy special there (which in itself is a very long story).

But the highlight of the journey was going to Karvi, a place where I spent the initial part of my life that is from age 1-5. 🙂 One interesting anecdote about the place is about the first words I uttered, generally a child’s first words are ma, papa or sum such words but my first word was Goelal (a mispronouciation of Gorelal, which was the name of a servant who used to work at our home). I always used to listen stories from my mom about how good those people (the servants at our home then, and there were quite a few of them)were and how much they used to love us, it all seemed pretty hard to belive somebody would do such things for somebody they arent even related to, but even today 16 years after we left the place, those people are still so full of love, it was so touching to see them, take such pains for people who they met after 16 years and with whom they have no purpose.

Meeting them was such an eye opener, they are still so good in this world full of such filth!! I wish these guys all the best for their future! Lucky to have met and recieved love from such people!!