Fancy a bet?

I have noticed something interesting in my job lately....the flow of money....from whom, for whom, what for, how much, on what etc....its been more than a year now that I have been working part time in the world's and the UK's largest bookmaker...Ladbrokes.....most important aspect of my job is taking in bets, putting it through the scanner, inputting the punters instructions in the computer, paying out any outstanding bets.....sometimes I wonder...when I see punters winning money big time...say the largest I have paid out was £41,000 for a mere £20 horse accummulator bet....punters lose, they bet again, they win, they lose again...it continues...the horses and the dogs that run every half an hour don't even know what they are running for and who is getting all the money...we know who is getting all the money, how and why...but its not my money either....when I payout somebody an amount which is say thrice what I earn laboriously in a month...I feel the difference....here I am working my ass off for a month to get the money which someone is earning in 1 minute after a few button clicks and rolling of the roulette....I touch the queen's photo every second and I make sounds with the pound coins everytime I place them in my coin-tray....and I realise...the difference between what is mine....and what is not mine...what I deserve...and what I don't....its my job and I will take away only what I work for...at the end of the month...I am happy...after all...life should not be a gamble.

The Hero Returns Home

I wonder if its a matter of pride or shame....should we...as a nation...be proud or be ashamed....the body of Bir Shreshtha Flight Lieutenant Shaheed Matiur Rahman was brought from Pakistan to Bangladesh today...after 35 years of independence of the country....what an irony.....one of the seven Bir Shreshthas...or Great Heros..who laid down his life heroically for the independence of Bangladesh...finally will be buried in the soil for which he sacrificed his life.....in 1971.....shame on us that we could not hear his plea....which was crying out silently from the shabby ordinary graveyard of the Maswoud Air Base of Karachi..in Pakistan....pleading to take eternal rest in the soil of his motherland....so busy our politicians were to look after their vested self-interests..or party interests.....that the very fact of independence from Pakistan became dubious....so easily we were oblivious of the cyring soul of Matiur...he was a flight instructor in the PAF...while in a training flight...he tried to take the training aircraft towards India..with the intention to join the liberation movement back in East Pakistan...Bangladesh...he had a scuffle with his trainee...captain Rashid Minhaz...inside the aircraft...and his aircraft was chased by four fighters of the PAF.....amidst all this ....his plane crashed just 3 miles away from the Indian border and both of them died.....Rashid Minhaz was declared a national hero of Pakistan...and was buried with glory and honour...and the national hero of Bangladesh...Matiur was buried as a traitor...as an ordinary person...and we bothered to show him last respect after 35 years....I am sure the souls of the Bir Shreshthas who are witnessing the situation in Bangladesh now...must be regretting having laid down their precious lives for the mess we have created in Bangladesh. This is not what they dreamt of.

HR Paradox and a lesson

I have a burning HR issue....how to deal with a senior manager whose expertise are superb and profound in the business domain.....who surely knows better than most in moments of confusion....however....is not liked by most..as a person. What if the manager's interpersonal skills are considered to be very bossy, blunt, agressive, unreliable and two-faced....most of his colleagues, subordinates are not comfortable with him....but the person remains unaffected to all this background conversation due to his expert knowledge.......the colleagues or subordinates can't quit the job just because of this one person...at the same time...they have to adjust with the peculiarities of the person concerned....what to do?

A lesson learnt : When you ask someone to do something for you, never expect it to get it right the first time, if they do, you are lucky and it will not happen again, so forget it and keep quiet.

Rat or Robot?

Life never got so busy ever since coming to London in Feb 2005.......five days a week work at the bookmakers.....thanks to the World Cup Football...our tills never stop taking in and paying out bets....but 12 hours a day's work is taking its toll...I wake up, I eat, I get ready, I go to work, I work, I work, I work till 10 at night...I come back home...I eat...I sleep....I wake up....and it continues...nothing else happens in between....whatever minute happens is part of the regularity....the two days that are off in the week were supposed to be devoted to my dissertation...the last but most important piece of document left for my MBA....but I am not getting any time at all to be in the right frame of mind to sit down..cool down..concentrate and write up that thesis.....amidst all this....I have forgotten when I cooked last....I have made the local Chinese take away richer lately...the lady even knows very well by now that I only order the Singapore fried rice (very hot) (without pork) every night at around 10.20...just before they close..probably I am their last customer....I don't have any time to even shop groceries...forget about cooking....I can barely stand when I return...sometimes I wonder...if I have become a rat or a robot.....in the mornings and in the evenings...when I see the Londoners rushing down the stairs to catch that tube....I feel like a tiny rat in a rat race....we all are rats running down the underground stairs to grab that bigger, tastier piece of cheese.....or have I become a robot? mechanic, programmed, predictable life....gradually devoid of small but meaningful emotions...as we enter the sandwich generation.....as if we only live for needs..not for feelings.....I don't know what I am now....probably I am a robotic rat...that sounds better....more specific I guess.8 minutes to midnight....enough time has been wasted on this...can't afford to be awake before 12.20 AM. Rat Robot signing off.zzzzzzzzzzzzz!

God's invention or the invention of God?

I still remember a discussion with a very good Indian friend of mine....sometime in 2000 I think...we started talking about girls, money, food, sport, career, love and finally ended up talking about something mystic.....about God and religion...we talked about how the concept of God could have set in...some excerpts from that discussion....it could be that when man is faced in front of a danger or uncertainty so big and so severe that its beyond his control..he seeks help and shelter from an entity much much larger and bigger than him...which would be able to provide salvation from the imminent danger....that is how people started worshipping gigantic mountains, turbulent oceans, violent winds, flashening thunderbolts, or even a huge tree or a big piece of rock....all of which have been items of worship and have been labelled 'such and such' God at some point of time....as man was vulnerable to the forces of nature....man felt so small in front of these items that they knelt down and asked for protection and mercy. Over a period of time, we saw the rise of some 'social scientists'....now what are social scientists? We have scientists who have invented say electricity, radio, television etc. we have theories from Newton, from Einstein and from Thomas Edison....similarly a few men had thought deeply about the indiscipline and chaos in personal and social lives....and they have tried to come up with a formula..or a set of rules...to install order and peace in both personal and social lives....in the societies they used to live in....so they devised the sets of rules and procedures which took the form of religion over a period of centuries....but these wise men knew that anything man made like this would be a subject to ridicule or even destruction by other people....so the divine presence of a super power was essential to justify and validate the rules...voila came the notion of God...the almighty......the supreme....anyone who doubts His teachings...His directions....are infidels....and are wrong....was the impression. But if we look at today's world....we see that religion was probably needed once upon a time to establish a common platform among people...so they could share common personal, social and spiritual values...but no more....now religion has become secondary as a mean to install commonality among people....because we have concepts of country and culture as a stronger element to build bonds among people. So...after all this easy explanation of how religion was invented.....where does God go? should we all be atheists? should all religious teachings be banned? Well...in my opinion....when I close my eyes...I can very easily speak to My God...and religious values are ofcourse important....as no religion tells to steal, to tell lies, to kill....so I guess now is the time to focus more on the end results of religions....rather than looking at the means of it.

ABCDs and BBCDs

Yes....today its about ABCDs and BBCDs....no its not going to be about learning the English alphabets...rather I just wanted to talk about the American Born Confused Desis and the British Born Confused Desis...simply speaking...after the 7/7 London bombings....when I came to know about the backgrounds of the bombers...what struck me most was the issue of identity crisis....when someone is born in a say...Bangladeshi family here in Britain...the parents try to raise the child according to their own cultural values...whereas when the child goes to school and mixes with local children...it tries to adapt to local values and norms...and all of which leads to confusion.....however I have met Bangladeshi/Indian families in Britain and have met their offsprings born and raised in this country..who are as knowledgable about the British culture as they are aware of the culture of their parents' homeland....its fortunate for them that they have been able to learn and live the best from both the cultures.....some unfortunate ones are the ones like the ABCDs or BBCDs....for example when they grow up ...they are probably ridiculed by local white boys as 'Pakis' or 'Brown Arse' etc...and as they are not white....their Britishness probably could always be under scrutiny...irrespective of their knowledge of the UK or the Midland accent they speak in....on the other hand..when they visit the country of origin of their parents....they are unwelcome by the natives as ABCDs and BBCDs...as they can hardly speak in the local language...let alone reading and writing it....the Queen's English is their only means of articulation which is an item of fun and teasing by the locals.....so amidst this identity crisis and the sense of 'not belonging to anywhere'.....where do they seek refuge? bingo.....no where else but under the banner of religion....its the religion which gives them an identity...which indoctrines them in the principle that your first and foremost identity is that you belong to such and such religion....rest are all mortal..and manmade...i.e. country..nationality..culture etc...so you should forget them....or even erase them...destroy them.. from your life..in order to establish 'your true identity'....your religious one.....and voila we have well-educated, western-born, suddenly-turned-religious youth who plants bombs in tubes and buses to kill the bunch of infidels....does not matter if they were his own countrymates or not...as long as they didn't follow the same ideals as he did...all of them are 'permitted' to be killed....I think this is how the confusion leads to destruction.