Thursday, August 25, 2011

India's tryst with destiny

India is going through a tumultuous period. Atlast we have found a hero who fits the bill. He doesn’t create much havoc and he doesn’t demand much out of us. The guy is serene and calm. He resembles a lot like our Gandhi, doesn’t drink or smoke, unmarried and ex-Army man. Moreover he has no five star hospitals or colleges to his name. Inshort here is a guy who does so much for us when we need to just ‘follow’ and ‘like’’.

Soon Ram Lila will be elevated to the position of Tahrir, Pearl square, Tianmen, Benghazi. Nespapers and Tv have ensured that we will not miss a moment. Joining them is the tweeters and bloggers. Visuals of ‘poor’ people streaming in from remote corners of the country is beamed in to ensure a touch of Pan Indian flavor.

Everything was going in so well with the Government of India v/s Rest of India XI match, when Ms. Arundhathi Roy dared play spoil sport. She in her usual sarcastic tone deplored Anna without any solid reason whatsoever. The bloggers and tweeters were just ready to pounce on her with the weapons ready. They had a great feast. Still they haven’t realized, no matter how hard you try to hate her she talks sense.

1. Anna has come across as a man who is unsure of his secular credentials. He has a record in dilly dallying with RSS, Baba Ramdev, Narendra Modis. But then it’s his views and who are we to bother. Still I hope he stands by his ideas this time around.

2. Team Anna has gone to great lengths to convince the nation on the merits of Jan Lokpal. The process and content is so transparent that we have no room for any malicious thought. But then are we to arrive at a consensus taking into consideration the public debates? There is no beigger joke than that. There are so many people outside the fringes who can’t afford a public debate on the issues they face. Now what if the ‘public’ minority is against the ‘private’ majority.

3. Why not the corruption by media or the corporate? Why do we focus only on Rajas and Kanimozhis? Where are the hot hot TV anchors caught red handed? Why do we spare Tata and Ambani? The tendency to spread anti political ideology is extremely dangerous to our democracy and hence Arundhathi’s theorem of overthrow is very well vindicated. We who are too eager to jump onto anything, have we examined the consequences? Is team Anna going to inherit a weak nation? Besides another independent, quasi-government body can effectively oversee corruption is ludicrous and at the same time dangerous too. De-centralisation is good when things are at its mediocre pace. We will not need a PM tied down by red-tapism in times of crises

4. I see a comment going around in Facebook claiming effectiveness of LokPal in Singapore. I sincerely wish people think before they spill out stupidity. Singapore is not a cheap place to stay. Don’t ever dream that bringing in black money will allow us to live cheap. That’s a sheer economic nonsense

5. Last of all do we seriously believe we can root out corruption simply by jailing a few politicians. The practice to get around is inherent in our system. We have too few resources and too many people. The unequal competition can only breed more corruption. If we are still optimistic, why aren’t we bothered of multitudes pushed to fringes. Why is Irom remembered only with a tinge of sympathy?

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Consumerism

When the eastern bloc was on its decline, the western propaganda machines pointed out the main deficiency of USSR as their inability to ‘consume’. They may have had enough and more to sustain, but the awful system offered them no real ‘choices’.

The first sign of change was setting up of multinational brand names all across the Eastern bloc. Even now the progress of a city is judged on the number of shopping mall and their hugeness. Your living standards no longer depend on the quality but on the brands you choose.

And now, after decades, the consumerist culture has taken a heavy beating and that too at its heart- London.

The analysts sat in their studio facing the camera, desperate to arrive at some conclusion on the motive behind the riots. How can our future history text books go blank? People with no faces and sex looted the city in 2011. Imagine the absurdity of the line.

If the colour was black, we could have pointed out to racial discontent. If it was white, then neo-nazism would have been the word. Sadly this time all the pre emptive formulaes simply didn’t stand.

Our system thrives on accumulating materials far beyond ‘need’. Although the popular perception is that achievement is based on merit, the reality is far from that. More and more players come onto the field everytime. The goal post keeps shifting and get smaller as the resources go scarce. And imagine the situation when referee disappears from the field. Well that’s what happened in Britain. Can we guarantee it won’t happen again, thus wiping out a few civilizations?

Indian government has been having somewhat secretly public affair with western model of capitalism. Over all these years they have been loosening the screws when it’s suddenly realized that the rules aren’t going to hold. So they come up with a strange decision to ration cooking gas. Do our policy makers realize the potential volatility?

Already the youth have been trying out the dangerous mix of free sex, homosexuality, liberalization, spirituality, communalism. Now try telling them they have to go on empty stomach because there was a leak in the stove!

Friday, August 12, 2011

Rant against the economy

I have never done the routine visits to vegetable vendor for about one and a half year. As my Dad lay sick, I did have to go to get his staple fruit diets. I was horrified to see that the prices for essential groceries have more than doubled in one and a half year.

I remember having had an argument with a friend on the merits and demerits of fuel prize de-regulation.

‘It’s good for economy in the long run’

What fucking good is the economy, when it’s meant to reduce the living standard of the common man? Imagine he ending up sick or unable to go to work. Does the economy grant him prosperity and stability? Or do we consider some sort of social responsibility to feed him our left overs. The scope for all those who preach charity is going to increase as we have been successful in marginalizing more and more percentage of our population.

Friday, August 5, 2011

The great One

A verse I remember from childhood: ‘It’s the divine one who erases the prominent’. Mine is a rough translation. The original is very powerful and piercing. The cover of the ‘Frontline’ did enough to remind me of the verse. Interestingly most of the Indian weeklies who lose no time in doing sex surveys didn’t bother about the fall of the great man. But to limit Rupert Murdoch into the ‘great’ bracket would be too belittling.

Rupert Murdoch did capture most of our mindspace and destroyed our grey cells. This man is not just great, he is super great. The fall of such a man would be nothing less than a super fall. But I wouldn’t predict a total annihilation. The humankind wouldn’t be able to do without the likes of him. Today I look back into how much the toilet papers have captured my imagination.

Until a few months ago the first thing I did in the morning was browse through SUN. it had the real toilet paper quality to give you total pleasure. But I had to be careful that no others would take a sneek peak. The paper regularly carried surveys on how the British preferred bigger boobs together with images authenticating the claims. Then there were raunchy affairs and football news. The invariable tactic was thousands of rumors were manufactured of which two would succeed. After a good 15 minutes, I would close the screen exclaiming ‘How Gross’. The next day my fingers would automatically go into the SUN again.

The Indian papers weren’t far behind in toilet paper stuff. The best one being ToI. The most read online Indian paper. They had also the invariable quality in stroking communal passion by bigoted articles. This would set off angry and bigoted comments from ignorant fools, which would cross the Indian borders too. To make matters there were some of the most stinking bloggers.

Hindustan Times had a better area in ‘confession corner’ . There you would get thousands of miserable people who did it with in laws, uncles, aunts, parents. There were enough space to give your kind advices too. A few weeks ago there was a Hindu v/s HT spat that ran into the editorials. It was about a headline claim from HT saying there were sex change operations being done in newborns. Gross! Right?

There is an instance in the Mahabharatha famously named as Aswathama incident. I don’t see anything better today. The information I see on TV or paper are either misinformation or suppressed information. The greater accessibility to the public has resulted in even indirect policy formation through the media.

The social responsibility of the masses is much more greater today. To me the media is a non real entity that feeds on the fantasies and eroticisms of the general public. So bifurcating the two is not an easy thing. But then again the media moguls may not be innocent enough to wash off their hands.

Even though a tough thing to do, we have to check out an article with sources of conflicting interests. Greater discernment and discretion is required before reaching a conclusion. I have seen bloggers shooting off their mouths inorder to get the maximum hits. How would I demonize Murdoch when we have greater beasts in our midst.

Lady Gaga, Digvijay, Rakhi Sawant, Mallika Sherawat survive on the controversy they pick up. Paying tributes to them once in a while with ample coverage to the silicon valley is disgusting. And I am yet t understand even when women loudly detest them, it’s the female race who are more obsessed with the show piece materials. The greatest women magazines’ main attractive item is their raunchy stories and photos!

Monday, August 1, 2011

Bro

I haven’t seen him grow up for the first 5 years of his life. After a weekend with him, I realized how much he had grown up. Infact we siblings have been sharing a roof for some 20+ years, although we wanted to move out. It all had to start with me. 3 months ago I moved out and now it’s his turn.

This weekend was unbearable, as I had to bear in mind he will be moving out into a different city soon. There were tears fighting to come out. But then it would be too feminine to do so. I remember the decade old marriage video, when he was small as a cat and ran around creating mayhem. I wonder if the cassette would still function. I would someday fetch it from the attic.

He was better than me in every area- passion, character, academics. So when Dad asked me to advise him, I chose not to. I was not worth for it. I know it’s going to be difficult for him to adjust to the truth that he didn’t end up in the field he loved. But then the hard truth about life is we never end up being what we want to be. No one is too lucky or unlucky. It’s good that we finish up our unlucky part early in life.

More than me, it’s going to be our parents who are going to miss you. They are seeing their kids going away to the big wide world to make out a living. May be they will start feeling old and lonely. But then that’s life. We never were the perfect family. They had to struggle a lot to grow three kids with huge appetite. Like a majority of Kerala family of the ‘80s they migrated to the deserts to make a living out of hot desert. Thankfully, we kids didn’t have to struggle much.

The last day when he was talking about a girl he met, I was stunned on how quickly had he matured into adulthood. The only advice would be ‘Bro, it’s a big bad, mad world. So take care’

From now on all the fights and shouting would be nothing but a sweet memory.

About Me

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Shakespeare,Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin and Lincoln never saw a movie,heard a radio or looked at TV. They had loneliness and knew what to do with it. Thay were not afraid of being lonely because they knew that was when the creative mood in them would work.