A cursory look on Pension in State Bank of India

This one is actually a letter written to RO Shah, a veteran trade union leader based at Baroda, who made tremendous efforts for necessary improvement on pension matters including family pension. Although the position has not been elaborately dealt with. it is after all a brief synopsis that may be a matter of all bank employees every where and hence the very text of the letter is reproduced:
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It was heartening talking to you over phone the other day.I quite realize I have not been able to keep in contact with you for a long time –the reason being that I couldn’t spare necessary time for the purpose which ofcourse can’t be a pertinent excuse I know.

You have been fighting virtually a lone battle on an issue like pension which otherwise is a matter connected with thousands and thousands of people all over the country. Your voice clashes the deaf ears in the channels that count for the purupose and only continues to remain sans any response from any quarter. I stopped taking whatever interest I used to take initially for the simple reason that before it could prove to be result oriented it was likely to elicit misunderstandings only which situation I thought of avoiding as all my career I was most often most misunderstood a person on issues crucial and salient. I strongly felt and do feel the same way even on date that pension is an issue worth being pursued as potentially it is strong enough ingredients wise capable of generating necessary merit which the concerned authorities just can’t deny. Why the concerned authorities are themselves not taking necessary initiative is the question. Obviously why they should bother if the beneficiaries themselves are not showing the required interest. You will agree, as you yourself said earlier, that majority of pensioners find themselves well settled otherwise and they have no reason for any worry whether there is some increase in pension or it is not there. Those who are in the saddle are busy elsewhere, even pensioners organisatins in the circles and at the national level are confined to the level of just offering prayers for some thing to be showered on them and are not prepared to act as fighters. Fighting for a right cause is not a fancy, it is a spirit capable of not getting dithered with age or status. This spirit they lack, nay it is a sort of voluntary incapacitation on their part.

If Unions with serving employees holding the reins are unable to deliver the goods, why the Unions with ex employees in the helm of affairs as leaders of the pensioners Association/Federation can’t play a decisively worked out strategy is the question. The serving people holding the reins being indifferent, the pensioners union being incapable of moving the channels involved and the pensioners, the likely beneficiaries of whatever improvement that could be cultivated, being themselves not so keen, what the few like you ofcourse with tremendous amount of spirit and enormous zeal can do is again a question. A few others who can do some thing but can’t do any thing for the risk of getting misunderstood naturally possess no potential for any orientation of some result or the other. Sounds pessimistic but this is the scenario after all is obtaining. I wish I am wrong in my estimation and finally the efforts you are making are capable of bringing the desired results. My circle General Secretary told me just a day before that as per information given to him by the Federation, some thing tangible may emerge within 2/3 weeks time. It is always better to hope for the best and I too would like to fall in line with it for an imaginable satisfaction atleast. I obviously owe you an all out acknowledgement and appreciation for your efforts in the matter. All the best.

Mystery Woman !

Came across a blog with a poem full of melancholy and sadness only the other day.It was something much more than what Keats penned in his ‘ode to melancholy’.Poem followed by some scriblings spoke volumes of seclusion pangs denoting a tempestuous depth of feelings she might be undergoing. ‘Save me against myself’ was the appeal. Her extraordinarily beautiful picture appearing in the blog was itself capable of telling a thousand stories through her deep looks glued to something just invisible. Sympathies sprangup from the core of my heart and I felt like I could share her grief whatever it was but she was inaccessible sans any consideration for her sympathizers –she could be callous or is helpless I don’t know. It’s like I see something and I don’t see. I possibly can’t identify her beyond what Shakespeare might have kept in his mind while talking about ‘Dark Lady’ of his sonnets.

Mother, nay Mother Divine !

A mother is the most divine a figure on earth. Adorable as a love incarnate, she has no match in this world. I lost my mother long back and a child in me feels like an abandoned one always, more so on a 'Mother's Day'. It does give me some solace to repeat what I wrote after she was no more several years back. While repeating this piece of a narrative, I just feel like she is very much here all around me.

MOTHER, NAY MOTHER DIVINE, IS NO MORE ! SHE BREATHED HER LAST AT 11.25 IN THE NIGHT OF 10TH AUGUST (1991). I WAS THE LUCKY ONE TO BE BY HER SIDE WHEN SHE BREATHED LAST. WITH SERENE CALMNESS BRIGHTLY MANIFEST ON HER FACE, IT JUST MADE A DIVINE LOOK AND THE DARK NIGHT OF AMAVASYA, AS THE DAY HAPPENED TO BE LIKE IT WAS IN THE CASE OF MY FATHER WHEN HE DIED 24 YEARS BACK, DID NOT MAKE THE ATMOSPHERE GLOOMY IN ANY MANNER -IT RATHER HAD A SORT OF A COOL FRAGRANCE. THE LAMP (PETROMAX) WHICH WAS OTHERWISE GIVING A NORMAL LIGHT, HAD ALL OF A SUDDEN A FLICKER, THEN A FLASH AND GONE OFF THEREAFTER COMPLETELY -THE PHENOMENON OCCURRING EXACTLY SIMULTANEOUS TO MY MOTHER BREATHING LAST. THIS I WAS NOT TO BELIEVE EASILY IF I WAS NOT A WITNESS MYSELF TO WHAT HAPPENED LIKE THIS. CERTAINLY MY MOTHER WAS A SOUL PURE AND DIVINE ALL HER LIFE.
WHY DO I FEEL SO SHATTERED ON MY MOTHER BEING NO MORE IN EARTHLY EXISTENCE IS THE QUESTION I AM ASKING TO MYSELF GETTING ANSWER FROM THE SPHERE THAT THERE COULD BE PARALLELS FOR SEVERAL THINGS IN THE WORLD BUT NEVER THE ONE FOR MOTHER`S LOVE -MORE SO IN THE CASE OF MY MOTHER WHOSE LOVE KNEW NO BOUNDARIES NOT FOR HER SONS ALONE BUT FOR SEVERAL WHOM SHE TREATED LIKE HER SONS. IT VERY MUCH FEELS AS IF SHE IS STILL AROUND. BUT AS THE TRUTH DAWNS, SHE ISN’T.

वेदना की ये निशानी ढुलकने दो !

मैं वियोगी प्यार के आंसू न पोंछो
वेदना की ये निशानी ढुलकने दो
ज़िन्दगी बेरास्ता हो जायेगी
तुम हमारी ब्यथा की आंधी न रोको ।

एक निश्चित क्रम सुबह और शाम का
लिए ज्यों ज्यों ज़िन्दगी ढलती रही
सजल मेघों की तरह भीगी हुयी
एक स्मृति है कि जो पलती रही ।

ये घुमड़ते मेघ जायेंगे कहॉ
बरसने दो बूँद बनकर वेदना
मुझे इन से प्रीत है अनुराग है
ये हमारी साधना हैं अर्चना ।

बाँध टूटा है द्रगों के धैर्य का
ये किसी की देन हैं इन को न टोको
जलधि से भी अधिक गहरायी लिए
पिघलते विश्वास की पीड़ा न रोको ।

मगर कुबूल नहीं आज भी शिकस्त मुझे !

यह कश्ती डगमगाती है भंवर में
किधर जाएगी क्या अंजाम होगा
मेरी दुश्वारियों के सिलसिले को
कहॉ कब कौन कैसा नाम देगा ।

एक अदद ज़िन्दगी का पैराहन
सिमट रहा है ज़मीन्दोज़ कुहासे की तरह
तमाम उम्र के घाटे को जो चुका न सका
बंधी मुट्ठी के तंग हाल मुनाफे की तरह ।

ज़्ल्ज्लागर है ज़मीं आसमां की मत पूछो
ऎसी गर्दिश कि सितारों ने जंग छेड़ा है
जलावतन हूँ मैं आगोश से नशेमन की
ऐसा आलम है कि अपनों का रुख भी टेढ़ा है ।

मुझे दरकार थी सफीने की
मेरे नसीब को तिनके ने सहारा न दिया
बहुत लागर हूँ मैं लहरों के थपेड़े खाकर
नाखुदा दूर किसी अजनबी ने रुख न किया ।

मगर कुबूल नहीं आज भी शिकस्त मुझे
कशमकश जारी रहेगी हत्तुलइमकान
होश काबू में हैं जिस हाल में जिस लम्हा तक
मैं रचाता रहूँगा कोइ न कोइ उनवान ।

फिर तो कुदरत का करिश्मा मुझे संभालेगा
सिलसिला काएनात का है इतना
फिर तो जेबाएशे दरिया की लहर ओढ़ेगी
जमां दराज़ का भारी सपना

Diabetes is controllable !

Normally diabetes is taken as a dreaded disease in the sense that it is supposed to cause multifarious complications in the body system compounding to various ailments one after the other.There are many to claim that it is fully curable and necessary prescription on that count are pouring into market every now and then. Doctors are not of one opinion and each one tells about it purely from their commercial point of view. I am not a doctor nor have done any academic course on it. I am just as good a patient as thousands of people in the country.I strongly believe that curable or not but diabetes is certainly controllable if necessary regimen of a disciplined life pattern is followed. Based on my individual experience as a patient, the following is the text of what I once submitted as a frugal brief to ACCUCHECK as requisitioned by them:

"Diabetes is disease that is more a challenge than ailment. If tamed, it infact alerts a patient against likelihood of different ailments. The disease is undoubtely capable of causing havoc as cells in the pancreas damaged once are irreversible but, if taken seriously and as a challenge, the harm so caused can be taken care of.What is required is a proper monitoring with a sense of perseverance. I am in mid sixties having diabetes for the last 3 decades -blood sugar shooting up 480 at one stage in Jaslok Hospital,Mumbai. Presently, say continuously for the last 3 years, it is under control with Blood Sugar (Fasting) hardly exceeding 90 and Blood Sugar (PP) remaining within 118. I am insulin dependant with 9 Units (Human Mixtard) before breakfast and 19 Units at dinner. Pathological test sugar is meticulously done every month besides a daily checkup through Diastix. Dietary precautions I take as advised by doctors prove helpful in overcoming disorders likely to occur otherwise.

I resorted to insulin at my own as the concerned doctors were all advocating for an increased dose of different tablets which, to my mind, are a cause for some adverse effect or the other to vital organs in the body. This switch over gives me the confidence that it hardly causes any side effects and that the amount of dose can accurately be measured in terms of the need staggering it upward or downward as be the cassse in consonance with food intake. I don't think an accurate and well measured dose of medicine is possible in the case of talets. Pricks that an isulin taker undergoes are no doubt inconvenient but it is worth ignoring them in the context of protection and safety it offers to a patient of diabetes."

A big anomalous feature which the patients of Diabetes suffer from most is that they are unnecessarily required very often to call on their doctors paying them exhorbitantly.Diagnosis wise and from pathological point of view, doctors opinion is certainly the need. This is the factor where it is very difficult to get the correct opinion with an accurate pathological test.Doctors opinion in most of the cases is just commercial. Only a few are lucky to get proper advice. But the problem is where the patients should go. What they should do is to only initially concentrate on obtaining a proper diagnosis on disease whereafter concentration has to be more on follow up with self monitoring without wasting money and time by calling on doctors simply to know about their current rate of sugar fluctuation which they can do better and with more of confidence if they resort to devices available for the purpose like glucometer to check sugar and Blood Pressure monitor to check the blood pressure which is a normal problem with the diabetics. The three instruments e.g. Huma Pen for those who are insulin dependent using pen instead of routine syringe, striips to check blood sugar and Glucometer are cursorily indicated in the photograph above. The mode and kind of these devices may vary according to individual preference. Investment on these devices is worth it if you compare much bigger an amount you have to spend by depending on outside sources and that too hardly reliable.

Self discipline, self monitoring and self followup are the essential measures which are capable of giving much more relief to diabetics compared to confusing opinions commercially given by the doctors. I am not for not consulting physicians at all but what I plead is to secure necessary confidence on where your ailment stands which is possible only when you do it yourself. Patients are to consult doctors only on selective basis and the followup measures can best be followed by them themselves in much better and safe a measure sticking to routine medication, testing and healthfully better dietary intake. Normally what doctors suggest on diet is the same what their predecessors used to prescribe ages back. How funny it looks that when you go to a physician, he hardly talks to you for a few minutes and what he invariably has to do at the end is to put a stamped version of diet which he might have done dozens of times with other patients before you called on him. This is the system the topmost doctors in the city adopt.

With adequate precautions, self monitoring and a regular follow up it is no more a difficulty in controlling diabetes. There are conflicting opinions whether it is fully curable or not but diabetics need not take it for granted that it can be eliminated simply because some doctor or the other boastfully claims so.For routine medicinal preliminaries and followup measures, you yourself can be the best judge.

Hang them by first available lamp post !

It is a Babubhai Katara or several others involved in human trafficking or smuggling people abroad, they have no case for any pardon. The crime assumes graver propotions when the people so involved happen tobe Members of Parliament. It is a pity to hear a M.P. pleading that “…I was given only Rs.8 lakh. I really don’t know if they (other accomplices) charged Rs.30 or 40 lakh for sending people abroad with me”. This is what Babubhai Katara, M.P. explained to police. Looks like as if the poor man didn’t get enough of amount for the service he rendered to the Nation and the people. In other words, the service he rendered deserved a remuneration in a bigger measure. The incident is not just confined to a singular M.P. –there are many who have been found lucratively indulging themselves into such nefarious activities tarnishing the image normally a public representative of a high status is supposed to carry.

Why do these shameless fellows need so much money.for which they don’t hesitate the least in introducing some body else’s wife as their wife and some body else’s children as their children and that too times without number in furtherance of their job of human trafficking and smuggling people outside the country.. The amount they are paid in normal course by way of their salary, perquisites,allowances and the likes is dozens of times bigger than what their predecessors used to get a few decades back. Conceptwise, there was infact nothing like any salary fixed for a Member of Parliament initially on the ground that they were not the employees appointed as such but were just the representatives elected as such by the people to voice their cause in Parliament and elsewhere. None could have ever imagined that this ‘elsewhere’ may some day mean human trafficking and smuggling people out of the country for money or raise questions in Parliament on a price. When some demand on that count was raised by some of the M.Ps, some salary was frugally introduced but it was strictly optional –only those M.Ps were to get this amount who specifically gave their option that they wanted it. It was not generalized. The idea was not to make it an office of profit.

There is a sky change since then. The M.Ps are now sumptuously paid all sorts of amenities like number of telephone connections, flats/bungalows, transport, mobiles, computers and any imaginable convenience tool for them and their families. Costliest computers and laptops are provided to many such M.Ps who don’t even know an abc of their use. Still every now and then there is a demand raised for increase in their salary,allowances and the likes and when put up it is quite unanimously okayed by the House within seconds. Security is provided to them irrespective of the reality whether they actually need it. An army of security personnel is at their disposal more as a matter of ‘status symbol’ than any need. The first Prime Minister of India Pt.Jawahar Lal Nehru, most dynamic and loved most by the people of the country, had no security like this for himself. After Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, when the then Home Minister Sardar Patel wanted to post necessary security for the Prime Minister, Pt Nehru refused but strong willed as Sardar Patel was he did do it telling that after ‘Bapu’s assassination’ he was not for taking any risk for ‘Jawahar’.

How different are the leaders today. If they are no match to leaders like Pt Nehru, Sardar Patel,and their co leaders earlier, they should atleast be the ones to behave normal without resorting to the sort of a loot they are pertpetrating on our country with their neck deep involvement in all sorts of scandals going for bribes, human trafficking and the like to satisfy their lust for money and wealth.

Such representatives elected to the highest forum of the country possibly can’t behave themselves and are all out on a loot spree blackening the face of the Nation as the instant incident is not a solitary instance in its direction. Sounds crude and harsh, but the fact remains that such people should no more be allowed to put the country on sale and they must be adequately punished –they deserve to be hanged by the first available lamp post.