An egoistic bastard, who ruled the universe with an iron hand.
Hiding the evil beneath a congratulatory veneer, he smiled.

“You bested me at my own game, I shall give you power.
You shall get to control a bit of my magic, a bit of being God”

“Time, I want to control time, slow it to a crawl, stop it, and if need be,
speed through it, and bend it to my will, out of your cruel hands”

“Of course, anything for someone just as powerful and clever as me”
Spoke the lord of the Universe, and in a moment it was done.

The world looked the same, and she remembered she was immensely sad.
The horror in her past, was still a reality, a permanent aching scar.

She sped back through time, to a time when she could see the world in colour
She then realized — she had mastery only over time, not over fate.

She tried blazing past her memories, hoping to escape her past demons.
Yet it only made the horrors more intense, for all the pain was now compressed.

She tried crawling through her past, hoping to subdue the hurt.
The intensity reduced, yet in that she saw the details she had forgotten

She could journey back and forth and bend time, yet never break it.
To go back she had to relive, put herself through the horrors she hoped to forget.

God had played a cruel joke, and trapped her, in her own world of horror.
Every time she tried to escape, it only pulled her in, a vortex of her creation.

She knew there was a time void of horrors, but it was meant for others, not her.
Her lack of command over fate, had made being mistress of time a curse

A curse she had wilfully sought, a curse she had worked towards.
Her brilliance had betrayed her, gifting her an eternal hell of suffering.

She then realized, there was one way out, in fact the only way out.
She could beat the vengeful God, and destroy the trap that chained her

She blazed part to a time before her, a world in which she never was.
“I have beaten you haven’t I? I have finally managed to stop the horror”

“Yes you have, but did you need to?” Asked a God that now looked caring.
“What if you had chosen not to go back, but to take a break, to slow time”

She was never meant to cut open her scars by chasing the past, but to pause
To give the scar time to heal, without robbing her mind of its brilliance.

She then saw what could've been, a lady with the horror, but in the past.
A lady whose works had made the world better and much more caring

A lady on her deathbed, with loved ones by her side, praying for her.
A lady the whole world would immensely miss, and remember till end of time.

“Any regrets?” She was asked. “Yes, I figured how to humiliate God, yet never did”.
For no matter what we choose, we are cursed to regret what could have been

Inspired by the resurrection stone in Harry Potter Universe, and the central idea in a Science Fiction story idea I have festered for a long long time.

We terribly miss you, please come back. It is true that we shunned you, your messages were too long and involved for our Social Media kings, Facebook hated you, and Twitter never even let you into his cool kid’s club. You see we were all young and stupid, and wanted to be accepted. We were hooked onto megalomania, and they were ready to give it us. So we kept getting high, not bothering to look even one step ahead.

To be fair all they asked was for brevity, but you see, we weren’t super humans to pair you and brevity. We just couldn’t, and when the thoughts came of our minds, and onto the keyboards, we weren’t patient enough to wait for you. Assertive, Aggressive and Definitive was the battle cry, and good soldiers we all were.

Little did we know, that there were far more sinister forces at play, forces for whom avoiding you was not just slopiness, but the very intent. In your world there weren’t hard lines but merely spectrums, but there was very little benefit to be made from that. The binary forces needed us categorized and neatly labelled into well defined boxes, they had their algorithms to do it for them, and they said “Let there be labels” and then there were.

Once the labels came on, everyone else became others. They taught us that others were the enemy, the very existensial threat to the labels we held, the ones who strived to destroy us just because we were labelled so. It was then imperitive that we defend ourselves, and we went to war. It was a hard battle, against many people I had once held dear, only now to realize they were a threat.

They told us glory was ours, but only if we mercilessly defended our labels, and oh we wanted glory, and we hated if others even got a whiff of the glory that was rightfully ours. How dare the others take what is rightlfully ours. Glory will be ours.

Dear nuance, it has now dawnned upon me that we have differing labels, so wait you were part of the others and now I see what you were, a corrupting influence on my purity. How dare you naunce how dare you corrupt me? I will do what is hard, and claim what is rightfully mine, and if I that means you are to be no more. Then to death we shall fight, to death.

Hatefully Yours,
Proud Soldier.

So let it be with Cash. The noble Modi
Hath told you Cash was mostly black:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Cash answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Modi and the RBI–
For Modi is an honourable man;

So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Cash’s funeral.
He was what fed me, faithful and just to me:
But Modi says he was black;
And Modi is an honourable man.

He hath given many people a will to live
Whose jobs created this wonderful economy:
Did this in Cash seem black?
When that the poor have cried, for they couldn’t find Cash:
Black money should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Modi says he was black;
And Modi is an honourable man.

You all did see that after Demonetisation
The rich was indifferent, while the poor suffered
Why did only the poor stand in queue: was this black money?
Yet Modi says the rich will cry;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.

I speak not to disprove what Modi spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for Cash?

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Cash,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

So once again newspapers have been going over and over and over again over how students have been offered ₹ 1.3 Crores ($ 210,000) or somewhere in that range for jobs at IITs. Sorry to bust the “bubbles” of any hopefuls, it is media hype.

Now let me just go into what a normal US Package at IITs look like, and every company company to IITs for CSE has stuck to this basic format, (but financial companies do present with opportunities for huge bonuses later on).

Base Salary (Cash components):
$100K — $120K
This is the total encashable components, it may include Housing and Transportation Allowance, both of which may be encashable only upto actual limits. Also look at the high tax rate given below applicable in California (~36%)
Joining + Relocation:
$10K — $20K
Yearly variable (includes performance and loyalty) Bonus :
$10K — $15K
Stock RSU :
$50K — $70K (or they may not offer it)
Stock RSU is actually paid over 4 years but included “completely” in the first year package. (Yes, 4 years of RSU in the package)
Non Cash Components:
$0K — $50K
Many companies don’t mention this in their CTC, but if mentioned it is not encashable, and only benefits like Health, and Dental Insurance, which every company has to take if they need to give you a job.

As you can see the $210K offer is somewhere in this whole thing. The joining bonus is a one time pay to take care of all your shifting (I am combining joining with relocation), while the performance bonus is performance dependent. At the core every company had a variation of only $20K in recurring cash component.

Now coming to the next biggest component Stock RSU (technically RSU alone since it stands for Restricted Stock Units), and the one that causes the most confusion.

Most RSU’s have a “1 year cliff, 4 year vestation” policy. Now while you can look up the complete details on investopedia, in brief it is as follows, the RSU mentioned in the offer is usually over a period of 4 years, and that to sections of 10%, 15%, 25%, 50%. That is while you are given the stocks initially you get the ability to transfer them only during these 4 year periods.

This means that you get 50% of the said RSU at the end of 4 years ONLY. Given that the average period in a company is 3 years, it has to be seen as such. So that means whatever stock option you get divide it by 6 and this is what you can expect each year, NOT the whole amount mentioned in the offer.

(Note : There is a difference between ESOP and RSU, where the former is the option to buy stocks in a company later, which is for startups that haven’t gone public yet, while the later is usually for larger companies. I am also not sure on the difference, so do check up on them, but they also follow the 1-yr cliff, 4-yr vestation policy).

Now once that is take into consideration the package comes down to normal levels as $120K in cash per year and about $7.5K in stocks, and this is what you should judge the package by.

Also to note is that converting it straight off from $120K 120*62.5 is pointless since the following are the rough data that you can expect

Rent : $10-15K
Food : Varies depending on company policy, but a normal meal costs $8-$10.
Tax : ~36%

The newspapers avoid all of this information completely and just talk about the US x Conversion rate cost, which I find completely absurd.

Why we need not be worried about her $2B

So a recent supposed report on Huffington Post put Sonia Gandhi’s wealth at a healthy $2 Billion ( ₹ 12,500 Crores) , they have since retracted the report, after they found out that the source was unreliable, which is newspaper-speak for “The number came from an intern who did a search on the Internet for this”. People in India but have been nevertheless angry about it, and media in India are still reporting it, willfully ignorant of the retraction. Who cares when you get so many views (Which is also why I am publishing this)

I say to all those people, that you are unnecessarily worrying, the report if true is a good thing. Here is why

1. All you people accusing her of corruption all she took from each person in India was just 2$ (₹ 125/- only), after guaranteeing us employment and food, don’t you think she deserved it.
2. Given that rupee has been falling, don’t you think it is good that our country has foreign deposits, in one of the most stable currencies in the world? Soniaji’s wealth is our country’s wealth, and if our country’s wealth is Soniaji’s wealth. After all isn’t it all part of India’s greatest family?
3. Shashi Tharoor talked about “Soft Power of India” and what better way to have it, than having one of the richest politicians in the world belonging to India. Imagine all the free press we will be getting. For once, they are not doing the usual cliche of search for hunger and poverty pics, but putting us in the wealthiest group.
4. I checked the list, there is only a single lady there, Queen Elizabeth, what better way to say f’ck you to our erstwhile oppressors and rulers than to have the current rulers making more wealth.
5. We all know that Indian’s are very bad at handling money, we mostly drink it away, so isn’t it good practice that someone with so much of money is keeping it safe in a bank which we can not touch. I am sure that should India need, our dear Soniaji will not hesitate to bring all the money back to India.
6. China and Pakistan are nowhere in the list, take that you international land mafias, we have got Gandhi, and you shall be made fun of. This is what you get for stealing land from India.
7. Indians also need not worry about the future of the money, the half of the money will eventually go to Priyanka Vadra and Robert Vadra(a.k.a The greatest entrepreneur in the world) is known for converting a few crores into a few hundred crores, with such capability imagine what he could do with $1 Billion, who knows we may have the richest person in the world title coming back. Also the No.1 Title of Vladimir Putin in this list should be ours.
8. The other $1 Billion would go to Rahul Gandhi, who I am expecting would keep it for when he become old, and given that Rahulji is a 43 year old “youth leader”, I have no clue whether that would even happen in my lifetime (or even probably his).
9. What better story to tell your kids than someone who was a normal lady in Italy, fell in love with Prince Charming and became the richest lady politician. This is the stuff inspirational movies are made out of. I foresee the scope for 2-3 Fairness Ads, a couple of Facewash ads, and a deodorant commercial out of this.

So there you have it guys, while there is no proof that Sonia Gandhi has 12500 crores in her purse, we do now know that if she did, it would be really good for India. So here is one person hoping that the report is true, and Sonia Gandhi is hiding the money just like parents hiding the kids birthday gift, and as we all know each and every Indian is Soniaji’s kid.

Finally so “Jai Bolo Soniaji Ki”.

So in the past few day this post on CNN Site describing the horrors of a women who was travelling through India went viral on many forums, including among Indians on Facebook. While a majority recognized what the post wanted to convey, a significant percentage nevertheless called out the women for standing out.

It is this what fears me for there is, I repeat nothing “Foreign” about this experience, ask around people, if you can’t — look on Quora for one, you will find that this is something Indian women go through so regularly that it is not even considered beyond normal. I do agree that “rarity” of a female, someone quite different from the ones they are used to assaulting would have made them more excited, but the fact remains that the core of the issue has nothing to do with the ethinicity of the female.

Ask around and you will find that almost each and every girl has had one of these experiences herself, but sadly “This is water”, something the Indian crowd has gotten so used to that it no longer makes news.

The most obvious, important realities are often the ones hardest to see and talk about — David Foster Wallace

So please if you do read this, don’t bother to think that it was because she was of a different ethnicity all this happened, it is NOT. The only reason this happened was because she was at the same place these people were, and she just seemed to be a different cuisine.

At the heart of this problem lies two issues, two issues that contribute largely to this whole issue. The first one has been talked about by a professor of mine in malayalam here, and I attempted a translation on Quora.

She cannot be a friend

A large percentage of the Indian population for some reason, takes pride to, once children grow beyond an age to seperate them on the basis on gender, and the girl is probably not to be seen. For from the start of puberty she has to be “taken care” to be unspoilled goods to be sold to the person with the highest standing, along with cupious amounts of gold and property.

So once a child is starting to both think for themselves, and to go through puberty, s/he no longer has a proper friend of the opposite gender. The one single relationship that could have remained between equals is not taken away. From there on , all the boys hear are that “Good boys don’t go behind girls”. And all the girls hear are “Stay away from the boys you don’t want to be impure”.

There is this particular part from the article that describes the situation from then on

there were no sex signals, only women’s bodies to be taken, or hidden away.

From there on to the point the men and women become mature , a lot has changed, women have now been transformed from “Childhood friends” to an “opportunity to score”. Hence this young lady, given that she was “different”, became an immense opportunity for people to score.

The patriarchy is so deeply imbibed that this was supposedly (yet to verify this but the source is known for posting accurately) standard material a few years ago in Rajasthani Schools.

Ram eat Kheer
Sita work

Bhuvan go to the school
Get taught by the teacher

Geeta bring water
Serve food for Dad

Madan play in the garden
Meena, help Mom

Ram, Bhuvan and Madan are typical boy names in India, while Sita, Geeta, and Meena are typical girl names.

All this means that there is no equal footing, and in such a situation it is not surprising that men feel a kind of “sexual entitlement” from the women.

Also to add at this point is the general tendency of the “Indian Middle Class and the Elite” to blame the poor for all such activities, they will point out the fact that all the people that are mentioned in the article are probably poor.

The biggest problem here I see is that while the observation may be true (the middle class and the rich indulge in other off the street sexual assault), the reason they do this is not because they are poor, it is because of how underdeveloped the community is. It is because of how little external education has penetrated that community. A large part of this community has been purposefully kept away from education because it will hurt a lot of things for the ones in power. They still believe what has been handed down to them, and quite understandably the ones doing that are not the best friends of treating anyone with equality and respect. So pardon me if you blame the poor, and it does not seem convincing to me.

Also to note is that the reduction is also because of “social status” issues in other sections of the society, not because they do believe in equality.

Successful Trial Runs

It is hard for me to assume that the first assault someone does is as brazen as some of the activities mentioned in the article, or reported in the news. The start of the activities is often very small, and these activities are usually the evolution of the small assaults they got away with. For example if we are to talk about the amount of groping or unwanted touching that happens in crowded public transport well it would just be every other person. Oh wait, there are often cases of even men being subjected to these in a crowded bus, and given how crowded most buses get, it also gives them a convenient opportunity to do this, but usually the one getting assaulted always knows.

The reason I wrote this article is because a lot of people in the wake of this have been talking about “reverse cultural shock” and “non cosmpolitan environment” in India, but I don’t think that is the matter. I don’t think India has a non-cosmopolitan environment, because for me most of the problems “foriegners” report in India, are not really unique to them, other than the intensity (1000 buck cheating for them, 100 buck cheating for us. Everyone stares at you for them, few people stare at you for us) the problem often has nothing to do with them being not from India.

P.S : Yes I have read this article, and I do agree that most Indian men are not rapists, or assaulters, but the point is that the root cause that causes this (the first point) is but surprisingly there with a large large percentage of the Indian population, and that is why I wrote this..