As the older one wakes up, the younger one falls asleep...
And so passes yet another Sunday..
One where you spend the entire day running after chores, cleaning house, putting kids to bed, waking them up. If there were 30 hours to the day, you'd still be running on empty by 9.30 pm.
One where "work-life balance" means going to office!!!
Which makes me wonder, "How the hell did our parents manage all those years ago??"
There was no TV to distract the kids, there was no microwave to quickly heat the food, no washing machine to wash and "spin-dry" the clothes, and (hell) no Pizza delivery!!! To add to that, there were shortages of everything. Money, supplies, toys, you name it. New clothes were stitched 2 sizes larger by the neighborhood tailor because ready-mades were out of our budget, and "hand-me-downs" were probably all that we wore through the day. Eating out was, at best, once a month.
It was a time, when moms worked not for a career, but because without the second income, the family faced penury. I could bore you with details of my parents slogging their backsides off, just to get us everything we wanted, but I am sure you have more details of your own.
It always makes me wonder why folks list the Ambanis and the Tendulkars and the SRKs as their role models, when there are more inspiring (and relevant) idols in their own homes.
So by now we all know that Salman Rushdie will be addressing the Jaipur Lit Fest through a video uplink which will be thoroughly vetted by censors for inappropriate mentions of banned utterances. He was going to attend in person, but he now has some threat to his life, true or otherwise, and so our man is forced to present like he is giving a job interview in a neighborhood Reliance Web World.
Death of Free Speech, I hear you say?
Well, Free Speech was never alive in the first place, but anyway, that's not the point of this post.
The organizers could very well have saved the entire embarrassment to everyone concerned, if only they had organized the festival after March 3, 2012.
Eh???
Nothing to do with any astrological misalignment, of any kind.
You see, the entire brouhaha about Salman Rushdie, has nothing to do with him, his book, his speech, or anything like that, and has everything to do with the elections in our great state of Uttar Pradesh.
You do know that the Congress is in tough battle with the Samajwadi Party (at least in their minds) for the so-called "Muslim" vote there, don't you? Outlook tells me from a few weeks ago, that most of the population would vote for whomever the village imam sahib would tell them to vote for. The Muslim vote would define the power brokers in Uttar Pradesh, a crowning moment for Rahul Gandhi to gain ascendancy into an eventual prime ministerial berth.
Put it another way, not a single participant, author, reader, fan, organizer, journalist, or Reliance Web World operator is going to vote in Uttar Pradesh come February. Do you seriously believe that, with so much at stake, by inviting the one man in this world who is associated with blasphemy against the Prophet (PBUH), a Congress chief minister would risk giving the SP so much of an advantage?
I mean, do you really really care whether they figured out the Higgs Boson the other day?? Here's some research I would rather have someone do:
-How many traffic accidents are caused by idiots on the road with earplugs in both ears blaring music?
-How much water is used, when having a shower when compared with a bucket bath?
-On the same lines, what are the efficiency losses of a shower versus a bucket bath,(temperature and volume)?
-If my phone can have a radio, and the internet, why can't my car stereo, so that I can play live internet radio instead of Radio Mirchi and the like? With a 3G enabled SIM, that should be possible, yeah?
-If mosquitoes breed in still water, then why don't we introduce genetically modified, sterilized mosquitoes in our taps?
-Why is it that I am in the same trouble if I run over a sober pedestrian when I am drunk, and a drunk pedestrian when I am sober?
-If Teflon is non-stick, then why don't they coat toilet bowls with some, instead of peddling Harpic?
-Why is Christmas the same day of the year, but Easter date is floating? If they knew the day Jesus was born, couldn't they also record his passing?
-If you can have battery operated inverters, why can't you have battery operated microwaves so that we can use them even when the power is out?
-Who defines what constitutes the middle class? Surely, everyone I know CANNOT be the "middle class" that they say they are, can they?
Someone I know, and respect a lot, sent me this article
I read this article, and also some of the others that have been forwarded to me from the same blog in the past. And the one recurring theme in these articles has been how the media are crooks. This is related to stuff I have been writing in the past, though with a slight difference. And I just wanted to make the situation and distinction clear.
Unfortunately, for modern India, it is the Congress that is the standard ruler. Like it or not, all political parties in modern India, are born out of an opposition to the Congress. The Jan Sangh, probably for some time defied that rule and went more on principle, but the BJP of today, is more an anti-Congress party rather than a pro-principle party. The principle that the Congress was built on - independence from the British - is so antiquated, that in a few years from now, the youngest freedom fighter for India's independence should logically be about 75 years old, and most likely has defected from the Congress already. None of the core values that any of the parties were set up for, in any case, has anything to do with the development of the country.
But they're still in power, and have been so for all except a few occasions. Let's face it, if the country really didn't want the Congress to rule, it had 15 chances in the Lok Sabha to ensure that. By my count, only on 5 occasions has it done so (Morarji '78, VP Singh '89, Deve Gowda/Gujral, Vajpayee '98, Vajpayee '99). A score of 10-5 is a score I would take that the country really likes the democratic monarchy concept. Even on the 5 times we kicked them out, 4 times out they got the largest vote percentage as a single party.
What does that tell someone?
In most of the cases, my challenge has been to sift through the media and identify articles without a hidden motive behind them. Yet, it's one thing to call media as "puppets in the hands of unseen masters", it's quite another to term them as crooks. That Rahul Gandhi is following a template set by his grandmother, (and subsequently followed by his father) is obvious. However, it's not worth getting so angry on Rahul Gandhi or even the media. They are doing what (in their opinion) is in their best interests. What hurts me more, is that the phoneyness in the entire exercise that seems so obvious to me, doesn't seem that obvious to others.
Which could also mean that it is my interpretation that is wrong. If I am the only one seeing this facade, then maybe it isn't a facade, and what Rahul Gandhi (and his caravan) are doing is really what people like. The king, the benevolent ruler, showers goodies on the "praja" and they are happy with their lives, and the king is free to do as he pleases.. He is the King, after all!!!
Maybe people do like this kind of mollycoddling, after all.. Could it be that people expect Government to be
like a benevolent king? Their mental image of the leader of a country, seems more like a "kind" ruler, rather than one of us. Stories of leadership told to us are Lord Rama, Vikramaditya, Shivaji, Tipu Sultan, Akbar etc. - all kings with no known oppostion, or even a known history of tolerating dissent (probably Akbar, but even then there is no history of anyone surviving a dissenting opinion with him). We don't have a history of the knowing the truth. What we have had, consistently through history has been a set of smoke and mirrors which we assume as "Rajdharma".. You look at Anna Hazare's movement for example, and all you will see are cases where the expectation from his group has been following this Rajdharma.. He has no qualms thrashing drunks, and forced sterilization if you have more than 2 kids, where the final word is that of a one man prosecutor, judge and jury.
On other fronts, I would be very interested to see how the "Maryada Purushottam" would have responded to breaking news that he sent his wife into exile.
Which begs the question, why is it that they do this? Are they evil people, who have pure evil on their minds?
Or could it be that they're doing this, for no other reason, than it is bloody effective..
12,145 days into the journey, realization dawns that my only possible entry to Masterchef would be a glass of Bournvita for my daughter. And hence the need for some stock taking, divided into four major categories.
Things I should do, and could do, but don't
- Invest my money (let alone wisely). I like it in my bank. Helps me stay honest.
- Keep in touch more with people. I think I am better than many, but that's no consolation. The blame goes in equal parts to ego and laziness.
- Learn how to cook for my kids and wife.The first statement pretty much sums up my culinary abilities. Part of it is because I need to...
- Learn how to stay focused. Most of the time I have a plethora of thoughts running through my head. Very tough to think straight. Which is one of the reason, I have not been able to...
- Write a book. I have a story, in my head. It's not in your hands yet, and the only one to blame is me.
- Listen to my wife a bit more. Especially when it comes to anything that can save me a few rupees (like haggling with fruit vendors). Even otherwise, I think I should listen to the wife a bit more. Make that quite a lot more.
- Lose weight. Big Time.. Know pain, no gain!!!
- Be a little bit more bothered about stuff. Patriotism, Cricket, Art, Movies, Politics, Corruption. I feel like Teflon at times. In some quarters, you would say, I need to show more "passion", but since I don't quite know what it means, I don't know how to show it more.
Things I do, that I (probably) shouldn't
- Secretly wish that the jerk who cut me off and is zipping through traffic on his bike like a slalom skier, falls off the bike. Same goes for the hypocrite who wears religious attire and runs his bike through a no-entry on M.G. Road, simply because there's no cop to catch him.
- Dig my nose. It's embarrassing, I know. But compared to some of the other addictions around, I say it's rather harmless.
- Think that most people are not out to screw me. Which is why I cannot fathom why my morning newspaper seems to go out of its way to suggest that people are out to screw me.
- Consider spelling mistakes a personal affront to a reader on part of the writer. Don't know why, but I do. Sue me!!!
- Feel jealous when someone does well. Sucks to be me at the time. But, I think it is for a reason.
Things I like to do, and could do 24/7, especially if given some encouragement
- Surf the internet. Not for Facebook or Twitter or anything like that. But mostly for interesting stuff happening all over the world, trying to increase my knowledge.
- Read. I read the old paper wrapping from the bhel puri parcel, if it is in a language I can read.
- Write this blog. If you want me to write 24/7, you guys need to follow this more frequently, and click like crazy on all the ads that you see on this blog. That way, Google pays me, and then I don't need to work for dinner.
- Watch people smile. It just gives me a kick.
- Have music playing in the background. Reminds me of my childhood, when the radio played during all waking hours.
Things I don't like to do, and wouldn't touch with a light pole if I had an option, but have to do.
- Fake enthusiasm. Biggest problem with me, I can only market stuff I am truly enthusiastic about.
- Performance reviews. Most of you know why.
- Have an opinion. I hate opinions, more than I hate faking enthusiasm..
- Talk about myself, especially to impress other people.
I'm quite sure there's more stuff, but I'm starting to listen more to my wife, and therefore stopping all this non-sense, and doing something more worthwhile and putting the kids to sleep :)
If I am playing the percentages, I think neither of my kids would be an engineer or a doctor. This is not a reflection on their aptitude in school. Just a reflection of the percentages.
Neither is in school right now, so all I have is statistics, and there are more people who are neither engineers nor doctors, than there are. So, probabilistically speaking, my kids would not be in these professions.
But there's a series of ads floating the rounds on TV these days that says that my kids could become peons (who save employees in office through timely use of the Heimlich maneuver) or master crooks (who can crack digital locks on those gigantic bank safes) who wanted to be (respectively) doctors or engineers but couldn't because their father didn't have the money to invest in their education fund (IDBI or something).
I wonder why they didn't pick lawyers, architects or chartered accountants. On watching this series, if a father feels guilty enough to invest in this fund, I can guarantee that this father is neither an engineer nor a doctor.
I can also guarantee that not a single soul involved with this ad series, has ever got an engineering or a medical degree.
But that's not the point of the rant here.
I would like to boldly predict on this post here that over the next few years, the engineering degree will be redundant.
Engineering knowledge is no longer centered in a school, college or university.
It is now out there. In real time with streaming live video. With the click of a button. Or a search engine.
If my daughter wants to be an engineer, she can just look it up on the internet, while Fourier turns in his grave.
The funny thing is, this democratization of engineering knowledge was made possible by engineers themselves.
As for medicine, it'll probably become more specialized so the probability of getting in, are even more remote. But the payoffs won't be as great.
Because there are options outside of medicine which can give you a comfortable living anyway. Without the 24/7 on call lifestyle or the gory details.
In other words, keep your money somewhere other than this IDBI Future Save or whatever.
Your kids will thank you for it, when you buy their entire school class that ice cream sundae.
.. Corruption is not the biggest issue concerning India. We have been corrupt for years together. Kings and princes gave the country to the British, in order to retain their riches. Judas did it for 30 pieces of silver. Corruption has been going on for so friggin' long that we know how to deal with it. The numbers are higher today, because the payoffs are higher. The Bofors scam cost the government 160 crore extra, with 21 crore kickbacks. Bloody rounding error compared to the 2G scam.
.. Forget policy paralysis, forget election fervor, forget democracy or the lack of it.. The biggest issue concerning India today, is the inability of people (myself included) to think for themselves. Outsourcing of responsibility has reached such levels that even responsibility of thought has been outsourced to news channels.. Time has always been 24 hours in a day. Ever since the Big Bang exploded. Don't tell me you don't have time to think.
.. Speaking of democracy, and how everyone keeps harping about why we're no longer a democracy because we are not free to write anything on Facebook. Well, young man, we never were a democracy in the first place. I don't like Sibal telling me what to post, just as much as I don't like Advani telling me to have beef without cow slaughter. But hey, republican democracy is a collective agreement that we will follow the rules we set for ourselves, which by the way includes holding elections for our representatives. Democracy is not equal to freedom to do anything you wish. That, by my memory, is anarchy. I don't like anarchy. You are free to like it if you wish. Just don't do it here.
.. Which is also why, much as I hate Rahul Gandhi getting prime position to take this country to its doom just because his mom was lucky enough to wait at his dad's table in University, it really doesn't do me any good by ranting at him (Rahul, not Rajiv, who is dead, bless his soul). If we were a true democracy, let alone Rahul Gandhi, but his dad, uncle, aunt, and grandmother would never have come to prominence. But they did. Just as Uddhav Thakeray, Ajit Pawar, Supriya Sule, Chandra Babu Naidu, the entire Scindia parivar, M.K. Stalin, heck, even Jayalalitha did. Some have some merit, some don't, but they did come to prominence because their relatives. And it's not that they wanted to be in that prominence. We've never really moved on from monarchial patronage. If you keep the King happy, you can do whatever you want. So, if the King dies, it makes sense to have someone from his family take his place, so that you can continue your shenanigans. If you get someone new in his place, he will find out your deeds. In return the King has to ensure that his subjects are happy, and leading a prosperous life. Patronage flows at the lowest common denominator. Mahadev Babar's son is going to be the next candidate from Kondhwa PMC ward. I know that, not for any other reason, but that he has a son. Three of them. His seat is vacant, so he's going to get one for his son. If he dies (God forbid, he's a good person), his son will contest the MLA elections. Simple as that. So that's what we are. A democratic monarchy.
.. But why freak out at politicians alone? We have a Jackky Bhagnani and a Hrithik Roshan. Take out Shah Rukh Khan and Akshay Kumar, and every single Bollywood hero that I know of, is there because of his contacts. We have Arjun Tendulkar getting a chance to bowl to Rohit Sharma in the nets. Parents name their kids Mukesh, for Ambani and not the singer, simply because Dhirubhai was a visionary.. It happens, it happens every where.. Live with it.
.. And I hope he never gets his 100th 100. I don't give a damn. What I DO give a damn about, is that we keep losing Test matches. AND FOR GOD'S SAKES, STOP CALLING HIM GOD!!!! You're pretty much associating Sachin with someone who will send you to eternal Hell, because you didn't do as He told you.. God subjects his subjects to tough love like malnutrition and female infanticide. Coming back to SRT, 99 centuries has a good enough ring to it and a conversation piece for a lifetime. If he gets to 100, all we'll say is he was a great player. But we do that already..
.. I don't give a shit when Saif marries Kareena. All I curious about, is if she takes up the "Khan" surname, and whether she converts to Islam. Truly, it's none of my business, but the highest paid Hindu actress in a Hindu majority country converting to Islam for love of someone 15 years her senior, would be a big story, no? Would do wonders for communal harmony. Especially if she takes to the hijaab and wears those fashionable plastic red and white bangles inside. One thing I know for sure, she would have some hot shot designer design her veils..
.. Speaking of which, given the age gap, and the fact that he's a Nawab, would Kareena be a trophy wife??
.. I wonder why we don't make more out of the Bollywood personal lives. I mean, 4 top actors (Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir (twice), Saif (one and a half) and Hrithik Roshan) have married outside their religion. Which is good. It's funny how we enjoy their lives vicariously, having them as role models for what they do on a cinema screen, and not follow their real life good deeds. I also don't understand why these people don't come out in public and say that to them, all this doesn't matter.
.. We're so reluctant to speak about the things that actually bite us in the bum. We keep clinging on to our world view, with no thoughts for how things keep changing.. We're nothing that we say we are, we're everything we say we're not..
What is it about a blank piece of paper (or MS-Word, actually) that makes me forget my thoughts?
This morning, I had this great thought, almost Buddha like, which made perfect sense, and I made a mental note to write about it. The mental note is there, but the note seems blank. Like the piece of paper you leave in your shirt pocket and it comes out of the washing machine. It’s there, and you know what was on there, but the details escape you. It could have been your friend’s number, or maybe the bank account you need to transfer money to, or the medicine you had to pick up on your way home.
Like I have always been thinking as to how a perfect blog post would be something on how we pay attention to too many things, but very little attention to detail. Details are something like the plague in the medieval times, where we avoid them whenever we can, and someone infected with this affliction is an accursed individual who either should be avoided or needs to be taken to the neighborhood tantric. Also, how we keep confusing ourselves between informative data and an alternate reality where anecdotes rule. How rising above the noise, is impossible when there is a choir of anecdotal trash playing in your head
I don’t know why, but the details escape me.
Another fabulous one still in my head, (always, “still in my head” never on the blog) is how all I am exposed to from everyone around is a gigantic marketing campaign about a gazillion times larger than what Shah Rukh Khan came up with for Ra.One, and how everything about what I see on TV, seems made up, with the single purpose of some valuable goods in my possession (money, votes, TRPs) being handed over to someone else, with nothing really valuable in exchange.
I think I even had a title for that: “Your lips move, but I can’t hear what you’re saying”!!!
Or maybe it was a title for something else.
I was going to write a stinging post about how the Bharat Ratna for Sachin Tendulkar would be a bad idea. I don’t have data to prove why it would be a bad idea, but it seems like a bad idea, so it ought to be a bad idea.
Or how the year 2011 was weird because we had autocracies toppled in favor of democracies, and democracies hung in to inaction, calling for some autocratic leadership.
And how, at the end, we all may not get what we deserve, but we definitely deserve what we get. Just depends on how long you define the time horizon
Or how, we’re all doomed because Mamata Banerjee’s mother died last week, thereby robbing mankind of the one person who knew how to handle her tantrums. Or how I have this great idea about Manmohan Singh’s secret diary (well, that’s not so bad, I think I could write that in a jiffy, it will be a simple copy of whatever Soniaji says)
Similarly, there was one where I wanted to write about one of my favorite teachers in school, Mrs. R. Kulkarni teaching me a nasty lesson on how I should not accuse people of anything, if I have not personally seen them do it, and how that is the only thought that keeps coming to my head when I read Facebook posts on my wall, which tell me that Rahul Gandhi and his foreigner friends gang-raped a party worker’s daughter in 2009.
I have always wondered why we don’t believe a word of what our boss says, but every random word on our FB wall is gospel. The world would have been a better place, if everyone was in Mrs. Kulkarni’s class.
But I digress.
My personal forgotten favorite, is the one where I wanted to rant about Facebook making me more eager to please other people so that they “like” everything I say, write, link, paste, upload and whatever else that it is that we do on Facebook. I also wanted to ramble on about how Facebook really contains very little actual information (status updates, photos, maybe messages), and a whole bunch of tripe masquerading as information. A glorified web aggregator – where people insist on putting on my “wall” junk, in the hope that I will further like it and comment and nothing else. I mean, do people get paid to do so much time pass?? Where can I apply?? – and all that..
But, as I said before, the details escape me.
So, if you think blogging is easy, it ain’t so. You can’t just conjure up an 800 word post with ideas and little else.
"….The politics of growth are difficult because those who lose from change are always present and are often more numerous and perhaps even more deserving than the present winners, the capitalists, the business people, the international mega corps; but today's losses and gains are fleeting, the permanent winners are the workers and consumers of the future who will know only the benefits of productivity."
It's easiest to do a job, when it is someone else's job.
I mean, when it's not your responsibility to do something, it is just so easy to come up with a plan for execution, the "metrics" and the perfect formula for success.
Somewhat like final year student projects, life is rosy, there is world peace, and water in your taps.
I could design the ICC Test Championship, plan how the Lokpal should be structured or help re-structure the Euro.
All during my lunch break.
I don't have to worry about the consequences of a poor design. I take my flights of fancy and if the sky has to be a shade of fuchsia, well, so be it.
But when it is your responsibility to do something, that's when real life has to be tackled.
Like legal obligations, laws of physics or simple likes and dislikes of other people
Minor details – pesky little irritants – with no business to interfere in my grand plan of worldwide domination.
-A lot of your interest on the subject being taught depends heavily on the professor. But even more depends on you. If you don't pay attention in class, you will almost definitely not maintain interest in what is being taught.
-A good way to pay attention in class is to maintain eye contact with the professors.
-Another good way to pay attention in class is to pay the fees through your own pocket (or your nose)
-I realized that my intense animus towards the morning shave would be described by most economists as "Diminishing Marginal Utility".
-If I try that line of reasoning with the wife, I stand at risk of being a victim of some other Diminishing Marginal Utility myself!!
-Accountants are historians. My respect for these historians, who record the passage of time in terms of money, has gone up by orders of magnitude when my damn Balance Sheet refused to tally
-It went up even further when I realized that for centuries, they did their magic without MS Excel
-Analyzing data is easy. Interpreting data is a completely different animal.
-Mentee is a word in the English Language.
They say a day has 24 hours. Over the next 21 months, I will find out very closely if they speak the truth.
"Corruptio optima pessima ~" The corruption of the best is the worst.
-Latin proverb
And so it is on this note that I start this post.
Really, I have no expectations of morality from the Rajas, Marans, Kalmadis, Chidambarams, Ambanis of this country.
None. Zero. Nada. Nyet. (or whatever)
To get to where they are today, they have had to trample on someone, and ensure their own practical ends are met, whichever way possible.
And even if that involves basically laundering money for political gain, or getting kickbacks for favours.
It is we, given our good fortune of decent men and women in politics in the past, believe that our political leaders should be human beings with unimpeachable integrity.
It is our folly that we hold such naïve expectations of people who are essentially representatives of the people.
But I have my heroes, the kind I look up to, and would like my kids to follow their examples.
The Kiran Bedis and the Anil Kumbles of this world. Human beings, but different from the rest.
Individuals I have utmost respect for
People who have achieved something, in spite of the odds.
Even a whiff of impropriety on their part, hurts, and hurts bad.
Especially, when they accept that what they're accused of is a fact.
But I could let it go, you know. I really could.
All they have to say, is "It was a mistake / misjudgment on my part. I wouldn't accept this behavior if done by someone else, and so you shouldn't accept this act done by me. I am sorry."
That's all you need say, Ms. Bedi (and Mr. Kumble)
It's their defiance and justification of their acts, that really makes me wonder, whether it is really worth having expectations of propriety from someone else.
"I will do what I say, I will also do what I don't say"
If I told you that someone said this to me, you'd probably look askance and ask me to look up the closest shrink.
Unless of course, I give you some more context to this "conversation". This is actually what the guy told me:
Naan solrathaiyum seiven, sollathathiyum seiven." - "I will do what I say, I will also do what I don't say."
- Rajnikanth
Annamalai (1992)
At this point in the conversation, the context probably doesn't even matter. If I did something to piss Rajnikanth off, I must have done something horribly wrong. It doesn't matter whether why I did what I did, or whether I was in the right or Rajni was in the wrong.
I got Rajni angry..
And if I know what's good for me, I don't want to get Rajni angry.
He may be the poorest guy on the screen, but he has one thing that the rich villain who promises to make a million chopped pieces of Rajni's mother's liver does not
He not only does what he says he will do, but he also does what he doesn't say he will do.
And even an infant from P.O. Village Krishnapuram in district Madurai of Tamil Nadu State knows that Rajni does what he says he will do.
He's got style, panache, and class,
But more importantly he's got credibility.
And that's pretty much what every parent, leader, manager, terrorist, hunger striking activist, politician, and whoever has anything to do with anyone else pretty much needs, if she needs to convince another human being to change their ways.
If you make a revolution, make it for fun, don't make it in ghastly seriousness, don't do it in deadly earnest, do it for fun.
Don't do it because you hate people, do it just to spit in their eye.
Don't do it for the money, do it and be damned to the money.
Don't do it for equality, do it because we've got too much equality and it would be fun to upset the apple-cart and see which way the apples would go a-rolling.
Don't do it for the working classes. Do it so that we can all of us be little aristocracies on our own and kick our heels like jolly escaped asses.
Don't do it, anyhow, for international Labour. Labour is the one thing a man has had too much of. Let's abolish labour, let's have done with labouring! Work can be fun, and men can enjoy it; then it's not labour. Let's have it so! Let's make a revolution for fun!
All this means to me, is that in a few weeks, I'll certainly be starting the second half of my life (!!!!!!!). Life is going to be all downhill from here on..
So, it probably makes sense of all the things I want to get done before I am done.. Presenting, in no particular order.
- See the birth of my kids DONE ALREADY..
- Master Malayalam
- Make a visit to Lord's and Wimbledon.. and the MCG..
- Write a book
- Contest the Lok Sabha elections
- Complete a course in economics, ideally something to do with Game Theory.
- Have a library with at least 1000 books, the kind you see on TV in a lawyer's office, with a "branch" in my toilet.
- Run a marathon
- See Olympics and / or World Cup football first hand.
- Take a motorcycle road trip
These may be bloody easy to achieve, you may think.
But they're not. If they were, I would have done them already, no?
But there is something seriously wrong in your household (and in mine) right now, and I'll be damned if I don't tell you about it.
Fear not, everyone around you is a nice person (at least from what I know), and even if they're not, this post is not about them.
And don't worry, your investments are safe.
And so is your house, and assets and everything visible is fine.
And if it weren't, I trust you'd do something about it soon enough.
But still there is something messed up in your house, and you still don't quite know about it.
It's that most of the information that is floating around you, is high on emotional content and very low on scientific basis.
Reality shows, newspaper articles, Facebook posts which are copy-pasted, YouTube videos. The kind that if it bleeds, it leads.
But if you're reading this blog post, I assume you're of a certain age, and educational background and honestly, I don't care if you're emotionally "blackmailable".
All things considered, you mostly deserve it.
But it's your kids I worry about.
They think you know everything.
And then you let them watch Chhota Bheem, and Sa Re Ga Ma Little Champs and God knows what else, where there is zero scientific logic being displayed.
Tantriks give ashirwaad, and the job is done. 6 year olds who can dance like Hrithik Roshan are considered role models. Even more so, if they have a single mother or a limp.
Maths and Science can go take a hike. Or maybe, be outsourced to a private tutor.
If your kids are messed up in the long run, don't tell me you weren't warned.
Over the last few days, my window to the world has been the Times of India. Kinda like life was, when I was a few years older than Annika. That's how it used to be. Regardless of what the 9 pm news said, life was what was written in the TOI. The rules of the English language were based on what was written in the TOI
But that was then. This is now.
Now is when winners of the "prestigious" TOI Social Impact Award get considered for the Padma awards, no matter that the award is in its inaugural year.
Now is when the Times Insight group, writes 10th standard essays on the petrol price in India being the 3rd highest by purchasing power parity, that grace the front page of the Sunday edition, while comparing the prices of gasoline in India today, with those in January 2011 for the rest of the world..
Now is when the Times of India leads a so-called ACT - Against Corruption Together to support the Anna Hazare campaign, but conveniently leaves out any mention of any dissenting voice.. (Could it have something to do with this development, I wonder.. but that's for another day.. )
Now is when the Times sells its masthead and its front page to anyone and everyone who will pay them top dollar.
Now is also when the Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. Wikipedia page, reads the following disclaimer:
This article is written like an advertisement. Please help rewrite this article from a neutral point of view.
Now is when, accused of found guilty of misleading readers through paid articles that look like actual articles through Medianet and Private Treaties, the CEO of BCCL has this to say:
Even if you make an advertisement, and put a circle around it, how is that important? Why is it important that it should be made clear to the reader?
At this point, does it matter what the TOI prints on a daily basis? Maybe they could just print receipts for their patrons in their daily tripe..
It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.
- It DOES NOT get any easier the second time around. Even if you do have some idea of what you're in for.
- For some reason, everyone around you is more excited. You're just glad all went well.
- You're busy counting down days for him to start sleeping all night, also known as a race with no known finish line.
- Somewhere deep inside, both parents want a girl and a boy. So that they can dress them up in pinks and teach them a lefty cover drive like Brian Lara.
- Somewhere deep inside, neither parent cares which of the kids dresses in pinks and which one plays the cover drive, as long as they're healthy.
- A man who has witnessed first hand his wife giving birth should really have no more fears in life. Not even year end job reviews.
Nations are, for want of a better phrase, primarily created
for identifying revenue payments.
This piece of land here pays India
its taxes and that part over there pays it China,
and there over the mountain, is Pakistan,
though India believes that
the people there should be paying them and not the guys in Pakistan… Or
something like it.
There’s nothing relevant as such about land boundaries outside
of this. Culture, language, religion etc. are all conveniences created by us to
further symbolize the common revenue generation module.
And if you look at it, at some levels our behavior is
reflecting this irrelevance of nations and the leaders of these nations.
In almost every country, across the board, the common sentiment
is that life has never been worse. Yet almost every country, is at a standard
of living that is better than ever before in recorded history.
You might think that the earth is unable to handle the 7
billion, that it houses (or will house around this time next year). But that’s
not quite right. The earth is quite able to handle 10 billion people.
It’s just the world as we know it today will be unable to
handle 10 billion.
In a global world supposedly brought together by technology,
nations as we know them, are becoming irrelevant. If we can work out a common revenue
generation model for the world, most of the problems in this world could be
solved.
And it's not like it isn't happening. It has already started.
Take a minute to think back on your life.
Where you are today, is probably not where you were 10 years ago.
Where you are today, is almost definitely not where you will be 10 years from now.
If money knows no national boundaries, why should we?
John Lennon was probably 50 years ahead of his time..
Think for a moment, that I am in a decision making position for the company that deals with the Government of India for something new. The first question I would have to answer on is the profitability for the company. Profitability (crudely) is the total income less the total investment, such that the return on investment is higher than what would normally accrue if we did nothing.
Regardless of which way you dice it, if there is "bribe" that I may have to pay, is something that goes in my "investment" column. The investment is made on the assumption of a certain amount of future income that would make my entire set of investments worthwhile. If that income doesn't accumulate as expected, my entire investment (legal or otherwise) is not worthwhile. Thus, the only way I would encourage this corruption is if the end income justifies the investment.
Now who provides me the income? In most cases, it would be end user. If the end user were to decide that they would not want to do business with my company, my entire business model on this project collapses.
I often think about this model, when people use their Reliance 3G connection at 1p/min to register their protest against corruption on my Facebook wall.
I don't think corruption is the biggest threat to India at the moment. Nor is communal violence, Sensex tanking, rising, or whatever it is that we feel right now.
The biggest immediate threat to India is Anna Hazare believing his own hype.
There, I said it.
I would like to meet the following people asking them what they are smoking:
The people who termed Anna as a Gandhian considering he advocates the death penalty for people guilty of corruption.
The people who believe that it was Gandhi's hunger strikes that made the British leave India. My understanding of history, weak as it has always been, was that Gandhi undertook hunger strikes as a way for penance for the ills in our own society. What got the British out of India was more economics, where the benefits of running India wasn't quite worth the hassles given the income drop thanks to the Swadeshi movements and World War II. But then, I may be wrong, as in most cases
The people who sincerely believe that getting rid of corrupt politicians will turn India into a Utopia of sorts.
The people who believe that Utopia is a fun place to be in.
I found it a bit strange that for all the history that was supposedly being created, and all the protests against elected representatives who take our taxes and do nothing for us in return, there wasn't much representation from the demographic which returns the highest voter turnout (rural / urban poor) and the demographic that pays the largest percentage of taxes (corporate types). Aamir Khan was there, but I also read somewhere that he's in discussions for a talk show that would highlight such issues, so let's discount that for a while.
Maybe that's a story somewhere. Those who vote don't pay taxes. Those who do pay the taxes, don't really vote. A friend of mine, Adi Garg, whose thoughts I value tremendously once gave me this gem:
"Middle class values are like a crutch that people like you and me use to justify why we are the way we are. The poor are too busy trying to survive to worry about shit like this and the rich really don't need to make any excuses"
…Or words to that effect.
I also think that given the constraints he faces, Manmohan Singh has not done a bad job as PM. "Given the constraints he faces" is the operative phrase here. For all chatter about "how weak he is, how he takes directions from a higher authority, how he is keeping the chair warm for Rahul baba, has been weak on corruption, etc.", the basic scorecard is that the matter is in the courts, with suspects (across the political spectrum) currently in jail. To me, Manmohan Singh's troubles are more related to bad PR than anything else. For those of you who believe that the Congress is the root of all evil in this country, the question you need also answer is this:
Would you rather have Sushma Swaraj as your PM?
You might say that Narendra Modi has a great chance of being PM, should the BJP come to power. And he will use some Sudarshan Chakra to rid us of all our ills. We'll be number one in the world, and then all will be well. You'll then wake up, brush your teeth and then go back to work.
It's a sad commentary on where we are as a society that the urban middle classes of India do not trust the political class. It is not personal issue against Manmohan Singh or Rahul Gandhi, but when there have been years of complete neglect, mistrust develops. Not really Rahul Gandhi at fault here, more his grandmother. But that most people would rather trust a random comment on their Facebook wall rather than the public utterances of their elected leaders' means there's some problem somewhere.
So, where does the problem lie? Electoral reforms for sure. So I am very interested to see what are the reforms that Anna Hazare's bunch comes up with next for him to fast for. That said, I don't think that given his past track record of "everything-is-black-and-white, I-am-right-and-you-bloody-politician-who-is-not-fit-to-be-in-my-celestial-presence-is-wrong-as-hell" hunger fasts I really don't think it amounts to much. His method is too much dependent on an idealism and then barring people who do not amount to that ideal state.
Kinda like Kelvin's absolute zero. We know it's there, but no one has actually seen it.
I wish I could say I knew what the problem was. I wish I could say that there's a quick switch that we need to flip and everything will be ok. But that's not how things work. But I do have some ideas, which even though I believe might help I am not going to go on hunger strikes for.
For example, I do believe that the stupidest thing that our leaders have done, is created states based on languages and cultural identities, rather than on administrative manageability. I also believe that the metros of India, and the larger cities, have no business being state capitals. I also think that electoral redistribution should happen on the basis of some formula of population and tax receipts, with a review every decade.
For this and many more, please let me know if you'd like to hear more. We can indulge in a debate online over email.
But let's keep it civil.
Let's consider both of us have the best interests of the country in our minds, and we only differ in our means of reaching that end.
Let's keep it such that we don't have to call each other names.
Let's doubt each others' philosophies, but not intent or competence.
We've been through enough on the "I AM (not) ANNA" issue, that I needn't say more. On the issue that is. What I said a couple of weeks ago, is coming out in different forms today. So, to maintain my uniqueness, I need to say something different.
I need to say what I think.
Or (more accurately) what I think, I think:
I miss the days where I could listen to music while doing absolutely nothing. I write this as I am listening to the intro for "Where the streets have no name" on my phone using headphones. And it's not the same. I close my eyes (yes, I can type quite a bit with my eyes closed) and soak in the song for the while. So, do excuse me for a few minutes, while I am just re-living my past.
Ok, so I am back. It's quite refreshing to spend 5m 38s with loud music blaring into your ears. You should try it. Somewhere in those 5m 38s minutes, you'll probably realize that it's not that you miss the listening to the music, it's just that it's been quite a while since you spent 5m 38s without your thoughts disturbing you. And that's the reality of what I have become. I am unable to spend 5m 38s without a new thought, a new idea, a new opinion coming through and grabbing my attention.
You might say, that I think too much. Especially if every 5m 38s I have a new thought coming up. But I say, I think too little. If all I can dedicate on a particular topic is less than 5m 38s, how can I come up with an opinion that gives me a better understanding of the world? How can I decide whether Anna is right, or Rahul Gandhi makes sense, or whatever?
Are too many thoughts spoiling my (intellectual) broth?
Maybe that's what this is. This is a war on my attention span. For example I read in today's TOI, that 31 lakh respondents have voted for the India Against Corruption poll on their website. I am also told that 31 lakh (3.1 million) is more than the population of 78 countries, and that it is the fastest growing among the most visited websites in the world. And I feel proud of my countrymen and women who are actively participating in this citizen's movement enriching democracy. But maybe if I had spent a little more time on it than what I did, trying to analyze the information, I probably would have realized that for the active citizenry, it still counts for only 0.25% of India's population. And that is assuming that the TOI has taken enough care that only Indian citizens, residing in India are voting on this drive and that too only once. Suddenly the thought that 99.75% of India's population (according to the TOI) really hasn't bothered to drop in on the TOI website (even to look at the titillating photographs) is somewhat sobering and maybe even a little thought provoking.
And that is the core to the problem at some levels. My scales of imagination have dumbed down. I see someone put up their kids photographs, and it's almost like a demand of etiquette that I press the "Like" button. My internet connection may not be fast enough to support viewing of 3 mega pixel photographs, but I'll be damned if I don't "like" it or pass a comment worthy of a plastic smile. What I say doesn't matter, and really no one is bothered enough to read what it is that I have written. Someone will "like" it. I can use tools and implements to mask my hypocrisy and my lack of genuineness
Maybe that's why I'm all so restless these days. Maybe that's why Mika Singh songs are more popular than Kishore Kumar originals. Maybe that's why I keep thinking that my life is in the pits whichever way I look at it. Maybe that's why I need to blame someone for the junkyard of the life they have left me in. I can't blame Pakistan any more, I can't blame foreign hands trying to destabilize my life, I can't blame the CIA, I can't blame the politicians.
I can't blame anyone.
But when I think a bit about it, a bit more than 5m 38s, my life really isn't that bad. Granted, growing up wasn't quite what the marketing department told us, but what the heck? If Triumph of Good over Evil is given, and I am 100% confident in my "goodness", why should I worry?
Still with me?
Or did you already press the "Like" button the moment you saw a U2 song somewhere in the text?
"In life, there are only two truths, Music and Mathematics" – Bapu.
The genesis of this idea comes from my friend Mohd. Haris, who calls his thoughts "erratic, random and sometimes stupid". But his idea of listing down things that people do in the full knowledge that they are wrong in doing so, yet do so with full approval from their conscience gave me an entrepreneurial idea.
It may not ethical, but hey, neither is the one the old man is fasting for. So here goes:
As mentioned, I as an individual, do things that I know are wrong, yet do them. I am in good mental and (mostly) physical health when I do so. For the sake of this example, let's just say, I know that I ought to not tweak my expense accounts, but you know, an odd fuel bill isn't so bad.. But now that I am protesting against corruption of the others, I must do something to show that I am not a bloody hypocrite. So what do I do?
That's where this new entrepreneurial venture comes in. Let's call it Paisa.com for sake of argument.
What is Paisa.com, you ask? Well, it is a customized portal which helps you to speculate on your own intentions. The intention has to be noble, (I shall not cheat in exams / I shall not tweak on my expense reports / I shall not cheat on my wife/girlfriend, whatever). So I go to this portal, and say for the next 1 year (or 2 months or decade or whatever), I shall not do whatever it is that I know I am not supposed to do.
Still with me? Seems doable? I think so, but probably not practical. People will come in and pledge whatever the hell they want to pledge.
That's where Paisa.com's USP lies. The pledge stands valid, only if I am willing to put some money down in an escrow account for the duration of the pledge. It will have rates like you have at the temple for pooja, Cheat on taxes = 20% on taxable income, Cheat on girlfriend = 1 lakh, something.. But something substantial.
Once I've pledged it, comes the second catch. I have to provide phones and email ids of 10 friends who will be told that this is what you're planning to do. Unless they validate that you are truly capable of paying up, the pledge doesn't come through. Once they validate me, they will be told that should they ever catch me doing whatever it is that I am betting that I will not do, if they report me to Paisa.com, they will get the entire money, post due diligence based on current savings rates. They are free to forward to anyone they like to add more sets of watchful eyes on me.
Should I successfully avoid getting caught over the duration of the pledge, I get the escrow money plus interest.
Benefits:
- Acts like a fixed deposit of sorts
- Acts like a deterrant. I know I can tweak my expense reports, but if I were to get caught, I might end up losing 1 lakh..
- Makes me a bit more honest.
- Friends watch over me, but have a financial incentive in ensuring that if I am doing wrong, I will get caught. If I don't get caught, no harm no foul.
Liabilities:
- Suddenly, har ek friend zaroori nahi hota hai :)
- Is it ethical?
- Can you think of anything else?
What do you think? Will work? Should I fast for this??
Thank you for your photos, SMSes and Facebook messages. As you said, there is indeed a widespread fervour and nervous enthusiasm that this time we will be able to get a realistic change. There are people from my office, young and and old, who are actively participating in this movement, and Mr. Hazare is truly championing a movement that is bound to bring about change. Needless to say, if we didn’t have corruption, we’d be a better place to live.
However, I must be true to myself and admit to you that this movement is not one that I would like to be associated with. Not that it is not arguing for the right thing - I am not the person to judge that. People believe that someone is taking advantage of them, and they have every right to protest. However, deep inside this protest smacks of usual human hypocrisy.
In the last five and some years that we have been back in India, I must admit, I have paid bribes. I have paid bribes to public prosecutors, to police inspectors, sub-inspectors and havaldars, to traffic policemen and RTO bureaucrats. In each of these cases however, the bribe paid was to help me (or someone I know) get out of something that could be perceived as wrong on our part. In these 5 years, I have not had a single instance where someone has asked me for a bribe when I am in the right. Even the bribes we give when we need something that is our right, at some level it is to help us jump the queue. That someone asks for a bribe, is one thing, in which I am complicit too. In light of this, who am I to protest against corruption, when it has helped me achieve my ultimate end?
However, this is not the corruption which bothers me.
This morning, as I was on my way to work, I approached a traffic light at Mobo chowk. As I approached it, the light turned red, so I slowed down. However, before I reached the junction, along came a gleaming, golden Honda City cutting across me. It was coming from the cross street, however given that their signal was red, decided to take the free left turn, then take the U-Turn (to come to my way), and then take the free left turn available to us. Since the divider wasn’t quite the biggest, it pretty much amounted to a straight road for him. However I reached there before him. And I stopped my car since I was to wait for the red light.
I was definitely in the right of way. I was well within my rights to stop for the right turn. But my action was deliberate. I didn’t want this suit wearing, goggle totting gentleman to take advantage of this loophole, while I was doing what is right. But this gentleman didn’t quite see it that way. He thought I was being a smart Alec. Swearing at me, my mother, my sisters, and everyone else, he went from behind my car, and carried on, while all the way making me aware of my incestuous relationships with all my female relatives.
It sounds funny, but it’s not.
Corruption, is not only monetary. Corruption is (as I read from the Webster Dictionary website) "an impairment of integrity, virtue or moral principle". The monetary portion is, if anything, the most easily retrievable impairment. And on this count, I must say that it is not just the politicians, government machinery or the bureaucrats who are corrupt. This morning, on my way to work, I encountered at least 3 instances where someone failed this so-called corruption test. Whether it is people riding on the wrong side of the road, breaking a traffic light or even for that matter not wearing a helmet / seat belt, we do it not because it is right, but in the full knowledge that it is wrong yet there is minimal chance of getting caught. And it’s not just traffic sense (or lack of it) that I am talking about. Whether it is the shopkeeper who prefers the cash transaction to the 2% service tax he would have to pay for debit card transactions, or the buyer who prefers to get the stocked item for this “discounted” price, each one of us has at some level actively participated in cheating the rest of our country. We seat our kids on bikes and break traffic lights with impunity. To us, and to our kids, this has become acceptable behavior. Differentiation between right and wrong, has become primarily a one-way street, where everything done by us is automatically considered right.
We may complain, protest, demand against our elected representatives, but at the end of the day, the people we have elected are our mirror image. What they’re doing is, in my opinion, no way different from what I would do if placed in that position. We can blame the system, or we can admit that it us, you and me, who has created the system. We have created this system, because at some level we do condone this corruption. We condone it because we have, at some point or the other done the exact same thing that we’re now taking the moral high road against. Hazare’s protest is showing “civil society” a mirror, and supposedly intelligent, somewhat educated, people are demanding we change the mirror. Expecting highest levels of morality and “unimpeachable” integrity from our leaders, while demonstrating the exact opposite at every single opportunity is what we have come to.
As regards Hazare’s behavior personally, there’s something left to personal judgement. I was not around during Mahatma Gandhi’s time, and so cannot comment on whether he is Gandhian in the true sense. But something seems wrong, when he says that if you’re not agreeing to his demands, you’re not doing the right thing for the country. Gandhi succeeded in his protest, because his protest was simple. He told the British government, that they have no right to rule simply because they do not represent the people. And to prove his point, he simply followed the rules set by them.
As regards the Jan Lokpal bill, again I am probably not the best judge of that. Maybe it is the best thing since we discovered freedom from the British. But something tells me that it won’t quite be the solution we’re hoping for. Not because of its merits or demerits, but rather because it will create one piece of legislation, and that’s it. As a society we are used to proceeding with anything and everything that meets our ultimate objective, and legislations and rules and ethics that come in our way are mere occupational hazards.
What I write is boring, and I may be arguing without merit. It certainly doesn’t sound sexy enough to hit the front pages of the TOI - a newspaper which seems to have no hesitation in selling its front page and masthead to the highest paying advertiser. Maybe my protest against the protest is misguided and on the wrong side of history.
But that’s what is on my mind, and I will be damned if I don’t say so.
And to top Anna Hazare’s million Bollywood Twitter friends, I have some support from Hollywood:
