Anything is possible (The week of April 4th, 2011)

The week of April 4th (April 4th through April 11th) created history in so many ways.

A New Masters Champion

A man who had never won on the PGA Tour, who was 4 shots behind the leaders and faced with an extremely crowded (and in top form) leaderboard…goes on to claim a major as his first PGA victory. All golfers know how rare this is – players can win many many times over on the tour without ever winning a major. And of all the majors, the Master’s is possibly the most precious (the U.S. open is the toughest in my opinion- but the back 9 on Master’s sunday is arguably as pressure packed, if not more).

A New Non-Violence Champion

A country like India has been mired in corruption since its infancy. This corruption, unlike western nations, is not restricted to the upper echelons of power. The simplest ‘government employee’ in India, providing basic services such as telephone repair or electri power repair would refuse to work without a ‘baksheesh’  (bribe). Usually, this bribe was asked for in a variety of different ways including ‘service charges’, ‘holiday tips’ etc. Diwali – India’s largest festival  – was notorious for these shameless workers asking for tips. Our postman knocked on our door on Diwali day. To his misfortune, no one was home except me. When I saw that he was expectantly waiting at the door even after I told him no one was home, I understood that he wanted his ‘holiday tip’. True to my hot-headed reputation, I felt my anger rise – and I asked him to get the hell out of my house – and that he should be ashamed of taking bribes.

PostScript : For several weeks, I waited for my ‘admission decisions’ to arrive from various U.S. colleges. One day, a well dressed office-goer knocks on our door and asks if there is an ‘Anuj Varma’ in the house. When I present myself, he pulls out a large envelope (from a U.S. university). Handing it to me, he explains

I found this in the trash outside. It looked important, so I picked it out – and went asking for the Varma residence.

Turns out, my postman, having been denied his bribe, had started throwing every important looking piece of mail in the garbage!

Postscript 1: My dad called the postman’s manager – and sorted that out. The mail started arriving on time – with a very meek looking postman who delivered our mail promptly, without complaint and without any cheeky outstretched palms.

Postscript 2: Turns out that the envelope that the gentleman delivered to my door contained not just an ‘acceptance letter’ – but also a ‘scholarship letter’ from a small U.S. university that was very keen on having me join (I ended up accepting that scholarship – and finding my way across the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic).

Corruption, in India, exists not just at the highest levels – but at the lowest levels. It ruins hundreds of lives every single day – and destroys thousands of dreams.

Quite honestly, I did not foresee the day that corruption would be attacked in a cohesive, intelligent manner within my lifetime.

But here we are, thanks to Anna Hazare and several others, standing on the brink of just such a turn in history. As per Anna Hazare, this is India’s second freedom struggle.

Anuj holds professional certifications in Google Cloud, AWS as well as certifications in Docker and App Performance Tools such as New Relic. He specializes in Cloud Security, Data Encryption and Container Technologies.

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Anuj Varma – who has written 1214 posts on Anuj Varma, Hands-On Technology Architect, Clean Air Activist.

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