The fence at the end of the world saves you from falling down into deep space

In wake of the unthinkable events unfolding in Mumbai

2008-11-27T21:08:00.000-08:00

ऐ दिल है मुशकिल जीना यहाँ.....

याद होगा आपको CID से यह गाना :

ऐ दिल है मुशकिल जीना यहाँ

ज़रा हट के, ज़रा बच के, ये है बम्बई मेरी जान।

कहीं बिल्डिंग, कहीं ट्रामें, कहीं मोटर, कहीं मिल

मिलता है यहां सब कुछ, इक मिलता नहीं दिल

इन्सान का नहीं नामों-निशान

ज़रा हट के ज़रा बच के, ये है बम्बई मेरी जान।

कहीं सट्टा, कहीं पत्ता, कहीं चोरी, कहीं रेस,

कहीं डाका, कहीं फ़ाका, कहीं ठोकर, कहीं ठेस,

बेकारों के हैं कई काम यहाँ

ज़रा हट के ज़रा बच के, ये है बम्बई मेरी जान।

Those are the problems of the past. Long back, the rich in Bombay had it easy and the poor were the only ones feeling the brunt of the ruthless efficiency of the city of dreams. The people of Bombay were accused of being unhelpful and uncompassionate. Well, may be you see some of those problems even now. It is so very often that roadside accidents, daylight shootings in public places, and alike events, draw out curious onlookers, not good Samaritans on the streets of Mumbai. However, by now, the Mumbaikars (not "Marathi Manoos") have acquitted themselves of such accusations with display of great character in times of distress.

Of late, the character of people of this great city has been tested once too many. In the Mumbai floods of 2005, civilians helped each other while government helped itself to another gold star incapability medal to bolster its already impressive tally. In the several bomb blasts since 90s, people have helped the persons on site and senior cops have put their lives on risk. The problems of old, still exist - the angry unemployed, the efficient underworld machine, the poor children, the unimaginable employment conditions and appalling infrastructure... However, now more important dangers to the city's lifeline have emerged. Long back the challenge was to make it to an apartment in the affluent South Bombay. The present day challenge is to make it to your natural death!

4 people die on Mumbai's train track's everyday. 1.6 (8 out of every 20 such deaths) of those people fall off the train. 1 crashes himself onto the poles. The number of terror attacks on Bombay make you wonder why are the people in London and NY so pragmatic when they have suffered just one each. The British government has taken away any garbage bins in densely populated areas of Central London. There is a fear that the "terrorists" might leave a bomb in the bin. So, you throw your trash on the street and one of the hundreds of cleaning staff will pick it up. I can't see that as a solution in Mumbai. The city doesn't have garbage bins since even before the terrorists started appearing as often as the full-moon.

बुरा दुनिया को है कहता, ऐसा भोला तो ना बन

जो है करता, वो है भरता, है यहाँ का यह चलन

The cue to our problems is in the above lines. Since the 1980s Pakistan has been trying to pry on the emotions of the Indian Muslims and international terrorist organisations using the Kashmir issue. It didn't have much success until we messed up the minority confidence in the rest of the country. State sponsored, mob enacted blunders like Godhara, Ayodhya have left a lot of angry souls among the minorities. International terrorists used these angry, frustrated people to set up sleeper cells, now the biggest threat to India's internal security. The presence of sleeper cells means that now acts of terror can be committed in and managed from smaller centres like Jaipur and Lucknow with a frightening ease. India has a 150 million strong Muslim population. Even if a 1000 of them (0.0007%) join these hate-mongers, that is quite a lot for intelligence agencies to handle from among its own people. We could not have afforded to let our own people join the ranks of such insidious organisations, but we still let that happen. The rise of RSS, VHP, Bajrang dal, Shiv Sena and Modi has only hastened the process of radicalisation of local Muslim youths. Foreign terrorists have allies in India, from India. Now these terrorist organisations have internal routes on Indian soil that are difficult to monitor. Did we created the monster?

The Americans and British, who have been chased single-mindedly by the terrorists in the recent attack are also facing the consequences of decisions that their governments made. Osama has the unique distinction of being created by CIA and being chased by FBI. Pakistan's ISI is not far behind. In the Afghan war against the Soviets, the US bolstered the capacities of ISI to aid itself in gaining a foothold in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, by late 80s, India started facing problems from ISI managed terrorism on Indian soil. US turned a blind eye to it. Even when they knew that the claims were right, they did not bother to purge or pressurise the extremist elements in ISI. They were a strategic ally after all, so what if they were killing a few Indians. Now, Osama has come to haunt US as a monster it created. ISI is not far behind, once again. There is a strong and growing evidence of the hand of ISI and international terror groups in the recent attack. Bombing certain sites on Pak soil and sending polite requests of improving conduct to ISI are not going to work. US will have to excercise its strategic muscle on Pakistan.

Meanwhile, India has to remain sure that it does not get washed in an extremist agenda. There will calls for divisive politics immediately after the situation is resolved. Some Hindu extremist elements will try to ration their jungle justice to innocent Muslim folk. The government will have to show vigilance to not let such anti-social elements to have their way. Mobs should be kept out of imparting justice in this case. The opposition and government alike will have to show an uncharacteristic restraint in not trying to spark riots. Out of the close to 80 Indians that have lost their lives in this attack, there are also a close to 10 innocent Muslims that lost their lives as well. Terrorism has no religion except hate. Two Turkish Muslims got their lives reprieved on account of their religion but the Indian Muslims lost their lives in an act of indiscriminate firing.

A Hindu retort to this tragedy will be an act of terrorism as well. India has to realise that it does not have the luxury that US and UK enjoy in the fight against terrorism. UK is an island. US is too far away from the centres of terrorism. There isn't enough population potential to be radicalised in comparison to India. Both these countries have the financial muscles to invest a lot on defence. India, will have to think a solution for itself, something original and innovative. It should be based on restoring communal harmony through education, taking down divisive politicians, improving security infrastructure and above all uniting ourselves against unworthy villains such as hatred.

These perpetrators of hate should know that:

दादागिरी नहीं, चलने की यहाँ

यह है बोम्बे, यह है बम्बई मेरी जान

खुदा हाफ़िज़।

May lord give peace to the victims of this tragedy and my great nation.

जय हिंद!!!

Common Oxymorons

2008-10-30T11:39:00.000-07:00

Some of the most common oxymorons (oxymora) that I have heard in the past few days:

"I am funny" - That wasn't funny enough.
"I am creative" - Should have found a more creative way of saying that.
Somebody sending you a message "Take your own time" 6 times in a hour! How can I take my own time if you throw panic my way every few minutes. The best expression of "take your own time" sentiment is to not contact the other person at all. Then, he/she will take his/her own time and express gratitude for your compassionate behavior (of course, the expression of gratitude is also mute).
"I will be there in 13 minutes" - No, you will be here in 15 minutes. You are just trying to numb my brain by puzzling me through a mathematical nuance. How dare you?
"I love the Tesco beer" - No, I will not take this one. Nobody "loves" the 20 pence 6-pack Supermarket brand beer/piss water. You "like" it (because it's cheap). Let us leave "love" for the cheesy ones.
"Needless to say ... blah blah blah" - Why say it then?

I will add more as I think of them. I know that the last two aren't exactly oxymorons, but you get the drift. Right?

Another gem from Quote of the Day - my opinion of Soap Operas, Reality shows and current news channels

2008-10-12T13:42:00.000-07:00

Television is the first truly democratic culture - the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what people do want.
- Clive Barnes

The heavy leaf, the fallen page

2008-09-21T14:43:00.000-07:00

"Let us have our coffee in the music room, Dorian. You must play Chopin to me. The man with whom my wife ran away played Chopin exquistely. Poor Victoria! I was very fond of her. The house is rather lonely without her. Of course, married life is merely a habit, a bad habit. But then one regrets the loss even of one's worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one's personality"

- Lord Henry Watton to Dorian Gray in "The Picture of Dorian Gray".

Wandering thoughts - II

2008-02-13T14:30:00.000-08:00

Racism:
I do not support Indian bowler Harbhajan Singh (Bhajji) on the recent issue of racially abusing Aussie Andrew Symonds. I do not buy the argument that Indians can not be racist because they are brown. Indians are among one of the most racist people in the world. We call whites as racist! To prove my point I will ask you a question - how many Indian people are ready to get married to black people? To the same people I ask - now how many of you are ready to get married to white people? Since we all know the statistics that will come out of such a survey, we should just throw away the argument that Indians can not be racist. I don't give a rats ass about whether Harbhajan actually called Symonds a monkey, he probably is one anyway.

Misracism:
After the ICC bought the retarded argument that Harbhajan can not be racist because he is brown, a lot the among Australian folk had their blood boiling in their veins. Next match, when Harbhajan was fielding close to the boundary, the Aussie crowd was taunting him - "Harbhajan is a Wener." Now the funny bit is that they do not know about Harbhajan's proficiency in English. For most parts, Bhajji must have been thinking - "Why are they calling me a Winner? I never get the sarcastic Aussie humour."

Lack of real issues:
I have realised that the British have no real domestic issues to talk about. This is why the front page of their newspapers are full of celebrity images. There is little their government can do to change their lives radically. The real serious topics in their media are international in nature. No wonder that weather is a dandy conversation starter in a country where the it is inconsequential (They get no real floods, no blizzards, no hurricanes and the worst is an irritating drizzle). Listening to BBC Radio 4, I am astounded by the kind of things they talk about:

A presenter has brought has brought in a high level lawyer to his studio to air his views on a consumer protection debate. Case - A man in England has sued Tim Burton, the director of Sweeny Todd, for misleading him with the advertisements. Seemingly, he had gone to see a gory misadventure and it turned out to be softy musical for him. In the BBC studio they were talking about the complainant's rights. What rights? Right to be an idiot. Is that a fundamental right now?
BBC is actually pretty good. It calls real experts to discuss issues, even if the issues are not real. Private radio channels are worse. They hire dumb Radio Jockeys who can speak 100 words in a minute without thinking. Quite an achievement. Everyday, Red Dragon FM gives counselling to people about topics like marriage, aggressive husbands, how to handle gay children, etc. What makes me wonder is that how come the listeners think of this RJ to be fit to counsel on topics that psychologists and sociologists would take several paid sessions to deal with? Do they really believe that a moron, who is playing a Britney song at every 10 minute interval, is really concerned about giving his honest best opinion on their personal lives? Baffles me.

A bite from my favourite BBC radio comedy, The Now Show -
"A conservative MP has been arrested for calling Prime Minister Gordon Brown a liar. Apparently, he had breached the Official Secrets Act"

The furniture Wars

2007-06-22T16:21:00.000-07:00

Great Video from Stage6

What looks good in literature but not in movies?

2007-06-06T12:15:00.000-07:00

I would start by referring to this passage out of Indian author Munshi Premchand's story डामुल का क़ैदी. The context is that a wealthy businessman (सेठ) goes to prison after confessing a crime when he could have easily avoided jail using his money. When he comes back from prison to meet his wife and son, who have been through much hardships while is away, this is what he says to his wife -
सेठजी ने श्रद्धा-भरी आँखों से देखकर कहा - भगवान् हमारे परम सुह्रद हैं। वह जो कुछ करते हैं, प्राणियों के कल्याण के लिये करते हैं। हम समझते हैं, हमारे साथ विधि ने अन्याय किया; पर यही हमारी मूर्खता है। विधि अबोध बालक नहीं है, जो अपने ही सिरजे हुए खिलौने को तोड़-फोड़ कर आनन्दित होता है। न वह हमारा शत्रु है, जो हमारा अहित करने में सुख मानता है। वह परम दयालु है, मंगल-रूप है। यही अवलम्ब था, जिसने निर्वासन-काल में मुझे सर्वनाश से बचाया। इस आधार के बिना कह नहीं सकता, मेरी नौका कहाँ कहाँ भटकती और उसका अन्त क्या होता।

A very idealistic statement, I must say, where he is preaching that he got what he deserved. This statement comes out beautifully amidst a story based on principles of honesty, truthfulness and belief in god. If the same statement came out in a movie, a soap or a magazine article, it would have looked so horribly cheesy and emotionally overdone. Why is that so?

May be everybody has respect for morals and high principles. Such principles depict what people like to see, not what they want to be. Being so idealistic seems uncool and impractical. Saying something like that could be the last statement of a healthy social life. Therefore, when you listen to such a dialogue in theater with your friends sitting besides you, you take the lead in dismissing it as boring and cheesy and put a stamp onto the stereotype the you prefer to settle in.

When you are sitting alone and reading a popular magazine and come across something like this, you will still not like it. It wouldn't seeming fitting among the Page-3 articles and political propagandas of a commercial magazine. It will seem like a cheap stunt from the magazine to push a false image of itself onto you. But, if this was in magazines, 50 years back, you might have liked it. It would have come from writers who believed in all this. In literature, it comes from the most idealistic characters and you don't feel cheated or being dealt in lies. You believe that such a person would say something like that from the bottom of his heart. You share a moment of joy with the author and appreciate the mutual liking for good characters.

Turn the page and move on in life.

Mortal Fears

2007-03-13T16:36:00.000-07:00

Everyday I read something about a few people dying. Growing up in 21st Century, I do not even take notice of it. Never ever have been these many unnecessary fatalities. My apathy towards death scares me, often pointing to my fading compassion as I grow up. I never wanted to be one of those people who are oblivious to the pain of other people. Looking at it from another angle, I am not so insensitive to death. I am very scared of my own death!

It all started when I was very young. One of my older cousin, Puneet, had come to visit us. With his popular gags and jokes he was a hit among the kids. We were all playing in the garden on a winter afternoon. I was just rolling in the grass and was laughing at being tickled by the pointed grass poking me through my T-shirt. Suddenly an insect came flying and stung me in the arm. The pain wasn't excruciating, therefore, I decided to ignore it and be cool. A few moments later, I realized that I had developed a water bubble under my skin at the site of attack. Seemingly perturbed by this aberration on my skin, I ran to the senior most consultant in the vicinity of the garden; Puneet he was. All the other kids were sitting besides him and enjoying his anecdotes. After a thorough diagnosis, he declared that I had cancer. The news came to me like my worst fears had come true.

The only thing I knew about cancer was that it had no cure and any body who had cancer in a TV serial would die and say bye to that soap. I moved away from Puneet and went inside quietly. Amidst all this action and jokes, nobody noticed my sad lifeless walk in the drawing room. I just sat onto the cushion and started crying. I had dreamed of doing so many things. I hadn't yet fired an air gun and I was about to die. This seemed like very unfair to me. Silent tears made way through my eyes and wet my lips with salty water. There was no sobbing. It was just a disciplined queue of tears waiting inside and walking out calmly when their turn came. It was uncharacteristic of me to not make a big deal about the cause of my tears. Crying was my trump card. I had always used tears as my last defense to resolve crisis. But today, I was defenseless. Today, tears weren't there to solve anything, they were there to express a newly found feeling, sadness. This was a new feeling and what bad luck that it came in form of news of my approaching mortality. Dad was walking out through drawing room when he saw me sitting quietly, making a mess of myself. When I told him that I am going to die of cancer because of the water bubble on my arm, he was both amused and relieved. He told me that they had been joking with me and I was to live a long and glorious life. He then called in Puneet and scolded him for his sad joke which was not so funny now. All the kids outside were laughing at me. The water bubble was burst open in the local clinic a few days later, but my mortal fears were not.

At the age of nine, this was the first time when I had appreciated life and not cribbed about the fact that other kids at the school were getting jam in their lunch box while I was just getting bread and pickle.

I was always a very safe child. Never fought with anybody. Always rode the cycle very slow and never took shortcuts. I was very "uncool". Kept away from dogs and didn't even curse god in my mind, after all he might just be listening to my thoughts at this very moment. Why mess up with the strongman.

I was in Ahmadabad in May 2001 to appear for an exam. This was only 4 months after a death-hungry earthquake had engulfed a large part of civilization and life in the region. The aftermath of this tragedy shook me from inside and brought another of my fears to the fore. A few months later, I was living on 1st floor in Ganga Hostel, IIT. One fine evening, an earthquake shook the coastal city, I lived in. I ran down as soon as I realized what was happening. A lot of other people followed the suit, but I did not return inside the building with them even with calm restored. I was still waiting downstairs for an official message about likelihood of another shaker. Just about then, somebody came and announced on the mike that more earthquakes are expected and everybody is instructed to go to Sangam ground to to seek safety. I dashed to Sangam. A match was going on over there. One of my classmates who had come there to support one of the teams asked me why the hell was I there, after all I didn't support either of the teams. I did not want to confess my fears to him so just avoided him by moving to some place else. I returned to hostel only when I found out that the announcement was a prank played by one of supporters of the teams in Sangam to get more audience. Later the Dean released a public statement saying that Chennai wasn't on the fault zone, so we may go back and sleep peacefully. I still couldn't. I forced my roommate to let me sleep near the door. I had a planned an escape route via the tree close to the door in event of an unlikely earthquake. Sleep avoided me all night. This was not the end of my nightmare. Even now, very often, I wake up in sleep feeling a quake, waking everybody beside me. Moments later, I am put to sleep again after being forced to believe that it was the dog moving under the bed. If computer games were never my type, Quake sure is my last choice game.

I believe all of us have some mortal fears. I feel quite light after the confession of my fears. If you say you do not have mortal fears than you are not brave enough. Not brave enough to face them.

Good night
Wishing you all a safe world.

PS: Anybody got the connect between the photo in the beginning and the post?

Music is for everyone

2006-11-25T19:07:00.000-08:00

It is always believed that music is not well understood by a lot of people. The taste for music is used by a lot of people as a pretense, to be seen as cool. These are bad people. But there are ignorant imbeciles as well. These are the ones who have a habit of breaking into a ruthless cacophony. There are people who have a very bad memory of lyrics and make a mockery of songs without an malicious intention. Wide range of capabilities exist in producing, reproducing and digesting music.

I have always belonged to the bad-in-all-respects category. I can't produce harmonious sounds, nor can I remember lyrics. Sometimes I believe it is something you are born with. Once in my third year of undergrad, I grabbed a keyboard from my ex-roommate Munna. My friend, Sid, used to live besides me. He was both gifted and trained. So, I asked Sid to teach me keyboard. He started by teaching me about the SEVEN Notes. The key was to be able to distinguish between them. I was not able to do that even after a few sessions. Sid gave up and said - "Its not your fault. If you can not feel the difference between notes, you will never create music." I took his word as god's will and humbly admitted my limitations to myself. Then on, I never tried to learn music. But, that hasn't deterred me from listening to a wide variety of music. I was and am pretty ease to please. I could even enjoy my next door guy singing. I realized that I was bad at lyrics. But, on the other hand, my taste for music was such that it ignored lyrics a lot of times. I could listen to songs from any language and feel happy, feel sad, feel something. There are a lot of songs that stir me up.

There are a billion people on the earth who fall into my category - good listeners alone people (GLAPs). We are the people who make music timeless. Music was created for expression. Not everybody can express it, but most of us can read the expression. If it was only for the ones who could express, I believe music would have become so limited and prone to death. IT wouldn't have survived till eternity. I raise a toast to all the GLAPs on the planet.

This is one of my favorites:

English - Language Bridge or Language Divide?

2006-10-30T14:40:00.000-08:00

English - Language Bridge or Language Divide?
The question that has been troubling Indian intelligentsia for quite some while.

Why couldn't we have a national language like China which has even more people and a greater area?

Why is English, or the popular modified local version Indish, the language to communicate across the various Indian states?

Why couldn't we use some indigenous language like Hindi or Sanskrit if we wanted a common language?

Padam Shree Javed Akhtar was answering these questions in a public gathering at IIT Madras in January 2003. He said - "In this dynamic world where knowledge and science is the primary form of wealth, a language has to be flexible and dynamic to be able to survive. A language has to keep adding new words to describe the new inventions, discoveries and ideas. It should be expanding so as to be capable of describing ongoing research. Hindi or other Indian languages are not doing that. Thus, English has become our language of academic discourse. Young Indians will find English more suited for their future lives as it will help them to describe their times. Hindi will not have enough expression to match the things of future."

It is not that Indians and Chinese have to learn English to be able to communicate with the west. If India and China decide to force the world to start using their language, they might be able to do so after some time, by virtue of sheer force of their numbers and growing stature. But their languages are slow evolving and they depend on English a lot of times to move forward in describing new ideas. Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese and a lot of other languages are far ahead of Hindi in this regard, but still there is a long way to catch up with English.

In the few days that I have been in UK, I have often come across the compliment that you learn languages pretty fast from people of various nationalities. I thought may be it comes naturally to us Indians. Most of us are at least bilinguals.

Yesterday, I was talking to this British friend of mine, Ball Williams (Will). He was curious that "why was English (Indish) the common language in India?". My answer was in taking a parallel to the European situation. Most Indian languages like Tamil, Telugu, Marathi are spoken by a population spread over an area bigger than most European nations and spoken by more people than most European languages. Read this to know better. The common language across Europe is English and so is it in India. Quite naturally so. The first time when a diverse Indian plethora was united in a formation that resembles the current concept of Indian nation, it was due to the Imperial forces (Raj). It was the first time that people from all over the India felt the need to learn a common langauge to communicate with a central government. Raj gave us our "first common language" and hence, Indish is our common language. It will be quite futile to expect Hindi to do the same job. If we wanted that, the Hindi Rulers should have done what the Raj did before them, they should have united the country. Language evolves by ease of use, not by an measure of patriotic and cultural coolness. Will was quite impressed by the statistics that we ourselves ignore so very often. I never thought about these statistics until he asked me this obvious question. It is very easy for North Indians to feel frustrated when they can't use their Hindi to communicate in south. The same north Indian wouldn't feel the frustration while talking to a Spanish guy with a broken English. The frustration that we so often find justified and take for granted, is letting a regional indignation creep into our otherwise unprejudiced and secular minds. Its feet stands on a soil of blatant ignorance of largely telling statistics staring into our face.

Okay, lets say English is not that bad. After all Urdu also came from the influence of Invaders and we have accepted it so warmly. Why not make India a one language nation and kill the regional divide? "Why not do it like China?"- as the popular Indian herd mentallity statement goes these days. In China, when Mao Tse-tung rose to power, he brought about the Cultural Revolution. He made Mandarin (Chinese) the compulsory common language. So he killed two birds with one stone - regional divide and regional diversity. With democracy, at least our regional diversity has survived. That is something that we are very proud of. IITs get a very diverse population with no special effort. Even the much revered IVY schools like Harvard and Columbia make an conscious effort to get diversity, even at the cost of merit at times. Respect for diversity is a tradition in India. This is the most important tradition that we have to preserve, more than the arranged marriages and saarees.

Thus, we should let the masses to choose their language and wait until a common language evolves with growing education and literacy. We still have a good reason to preserve Hindi and other regional languages. Our regional languages are much more qualified to describe our lives, the Kachoris, the dosas, the ishq, the mohabbat, the sati, the harijans, the kudiyan..... List is long. They are much more apt when describing the Indian emotions. So, the hindi fundamentalist who are advocating abolishing English from our education have a more costructive job left to them than obstructing scientific education. They have to fight hard to spread the beauty of Hindi Literature. I am sad that most of my Indian batchmates can't read Hindi books. Lets preserve our languages. Let us youth work for preservation when we become fathers and mothers. The opportunity is in our hands - Carpe diem.

Jai Hind.

Creative Students

2006-04-20T04:48:00.000-07:00

Please click on the images below, enlarge and read them. These are scanned copies of essays written by two cute (wierd) kids. God bless these kids for the numerous times I have had a hearty laugh reading their essays. Do read the teacher's comments also.

Looking outside my window - Describe sigths, sounds and activities

2. What would I like to see in my aged parents/grandparents

Wandering thoughts

2006-04-18T07:13:00.000-07:00

There are a few uncorrelated thoughts that keep running in my mind. Here I present a few of them:

Translated literature in India -
Once in my "Literature in Translation" class, Cubba said that Translated Indian Literature is actually "Socially relevant, necessarily serious literature in translation". His statement was not very well supported then, but it is indeed true in my opinion. Most Indian transalators belong to the group of "so-called" intellectuals and they indeed consider it to be their moral responsibility to contribute to social revolution, social change, social awareness, social blah blah .... all that just by transalating serious socially relevant literature. They thought that this is the call of the hour. Not too wrong for 1920, I guess. Pre-independence and till a little later, most of Indian intellectuals were fighting for social causes. People like Gandhi, Raja Rammohan Roy, etc. used to write essays on such issues. Lot of good regional language writers also were writing on social relevant issue(Bashir...). Due to this, the western anthropologists converted their study of Indian society into accounts of social oppression and backwardness. Anthropology became the study of brown men's religion by white man as against its dictionary definition.

But times have changed. Social revolution is still a priority in India, but I guess the urge is not as strong as it was then. The economic growth has triggered the social change. Demographies are changing rapidly and so are customs and tradition. Indian Culture is much more than the catalysts that brought about the current socio-economic distribution where there are glaring gaps. Thus our culture cannot be held responsible for the state of the poor, dalits and minorities. The ones responsible for that are our rulers. We can concentrate on the positive aspects of our culture. Our folklore has much more to give then stories of dalits oppressed by brahamins. Its time we realize that our folklore has a sea of humour and feel-good stories. Ever heard a grim story from your grandparents? Whatever they narrate will mostly make you laugh until you fall off the bed. Plus there are these beautiful local couplets and poetry that is soon going to be lost if we do not record them. These funny poems always have a morale, humour and rhyme. The day we realize this, probably we will see some of good Indian humour being translated. For beginners who want to translate I can give a few pointers - pick up any stuff from Hari Shankar Parsai, Makhan Lal Chaturvedi and many more. You would really want to translate it once you read it. Also look for the Urdu humour in India. It is great. Ever get your hands on the book - "Shrestya Hasya Kathayein" compiled by......i can't remember.'

Men have a birth right to humour -
In a world where women are steeling the baton from men everywhere, it can observed that most of legendary humourist still are men. You didn't see a single lady in Laughter Challenge or a Mahila Hasya Kaviyatri. It is all dominated by men. It is not so because women do not have a taste for humour. They do. But men have had the privilege to speak for centuries and it will take still some time for the human-female to walk into this window. They have always learned to keep stuff to themselves, especially, the one like humour, that asks for attention. Women have mostly been shy of attention(once again I am talking about the average, no offense to the extroverts). Plus a large part of humour also comes from vulgar language or double meaning phrases. Women have kept themselves away from this. With the women revolution happening both these factors are soon dissolving and I guess soon we will see the women on stage as much as men. Beware Sunil Pal.

Reservoir Dogs-2 (WE don't want any more Lollipop)

2006-04-17T02:49:00.000-07:00

After reading enormous amount of material in newspapers, listening to discussions in hostel... all on the reservation controversy, I write another blog on the same. First of all I congratulate Shri Shri Shri Arjun Singhji as he has succeeded in getting all the publicity that he would have wished for. I guess publicity was his aim (Social welfare was not his target we all know) and he achieved it.

Normalize Reservation: Do not compromise on quality
Yesterday I was talking to my friend Debo about this issue and he said that reservation has to be brought in allowable limits. Moves to bring about social welfare and equality should not discourage meritocracy. The IITs and IIMs should be allowed to decide the percentage relaxation in marks that the reservation category get. Amongst the ones who achieve it, we give admits to as many as alloted by a quota which is definitely not a freaking 50%. This takes care of a scenario where general category cut-off is 50/100 and reservation category cut-off is 20/100. The doctors who get into med-schools with these 20/100 with the aid of reservation are no better than my grandma in medicine.

Gap at bottom: Currently, reservation is a necessity to bring social equality because backward classes do not have access to good schooling and thus can not get into professional colleges on grounds of performance alone. What they really need is good schooling. The government should harness its resources and fight hard to provide them with quality primary and secondary education. By not doing so they have created a gap at bottom. By not fighting for lower caste school going kids, they have created a huge gap in knowledge and capabilities of lower and upper castes kids. Reservation is just a way to cover up for their lack of efforts in this regard by compromising on meritocracy.

Stories of our revolution: Stories of Indian lollipops
Very often we have got our acts of revolution wrong. The policy makers have often found incentives (like reservation) to bring about changes which do not address the root cause of the problem instead aggravate it. Thus those incentives are no more than giving lollipops to sick kids to keep them quite; they need medicine. Examples follow:
When we actually needed to aid our farmers with proper infrastructure of electricity and water, we gave them subsidies which created deficit prone budgets. We called it the green revolution. It was a revolution only in a few places where the agricultural infrastructure was good, not the ones with subsidies. We realized this only when the World Bank became stiff on us. Subsidies on fertilizer can not be substitutes of water and electricity. The government is indirectly responsible for the deaths of the numerous farmers who committed suicides due to various reasons.

When we needed to eradicate the "License Raj" so that our traders and entrepreneurs feel encouraged to grow, struggle and still survive in market, we opted to protect them from global firms. In the process we made them incompetent. Look at the fate of numerous PSUs that got enough corporate protection. Only PSUs that faced competition did well. We were always scared that our firms will never be able to sustain competion from MNCs. With the current growth and advance of Indian firms everywhere we can assume that Indian businessmen are no less competitive. Instead, we should have let them go out and let others come in (in short liberalize and globalise), so that they could learn to sustain competition. Eliminating competition is no way to guarantee learning and growth, struggle in tough conditions is.

There are many examples of similar apathy of policy makers towards grievous problems. The comman thread running is - irrespective of the government, leader and coalition formations, our politicians have always tried to look for lollipops instead of real solutions.

Reservation - The lollipop for backward classes.
Reservation is one way of dividing people. I explain. If you have ever been to a college, you would realize how much discomfort the talk of reservation can bring to a heterogeneous group. The way reservation is implemented right now, the backward classes gaining admission are not particularly as proud of their achievement. Due to the way it is implemented right now, a lot of stupid general category entrants regard themselves as superior when they actually aren't. Had the backward classes been given equal opportunities for schooling and then be allowed to enter colleges through the same tests as general category, they would have been equals. Reservation has not brought equal status to backward classes. They are rudely classified as the incompetent among the qualified. Root cause of misery of backward classes is a big question in India. Their population is large and the human resource in them in still untapped. Constructive moves to uplift their social and economic status have to be taken. All reservation does is to give them a false promise meanwhile bring down the only credible intitutions India has like IITs and IIMs.

We are looking for people who can give us medcines, not lollipos. Any volunteers?

We don't like the Villains, but what do the villains like?

2006-04-16T03:11:00.000-07:00

I was wondering about how much we hate some people. Like I hate these religious fundamentalists in India (RSS, VHP...). I hate Dawood and lot of other people.

Among the hundreds of people we don't like, there are a few proclaimed as public villains. Dislike towards them is not due to personal agenda, but because they are the filth of the society and are publically despised.

Writers and movie-makers capitalise on this hatred of ours and make movies where the hero beats up the villain. We clap with every blow that the villain gets because we model him as the one who needs a thrashing. We start patronising the on-screen heroes in real life. In short - Common man wants a filmstar's company because he has beaten up the bad guy.

What kind of movies do these villains of real life likes? I think even Dawood Ibrahim watches bollywood movies where the villains are beaten up. I know that these Mumbai Dons patronise film-stars and like their company. Why do these bad guys want their company. They cannot have the same reasons as of the common man stated above. What goes on in their mind? Did the "Chambal ke Daku" also like Ramlila depicting the win of good against evil? I have read something about Verrappan making a risky move of going to a cinema hall once to see a movie. He got trapped by police inside but still managed to escape. Real life villains do like movies.

A thousand such questions but no answer. Will have to meet one of these guys to clear my doubts. These bad guys really are wierd people. You can't reason their acts.

Reservoir Dogs

2006-04-08T03:49:00.000-07:00

I never saw the movie Reservoir Dogs as it has too much action (I can only guess as I never saw it). But I am about to see a equally action filled movie with quiet similar name in India. The photo given above is of a college student who self-immolated himself in protest of implementation of the Mandal Commission's report in 1990. The report had triggered wide-spread violence and riots and saw months of academic activity diluted into the prolonged agitation.

This blog is concerning the central govt.'s proposed legilation which would give another 27 percent reservation to OBCs(Other Backward Classes) in central govt. administered universities. The total reserved quota in IITs would rise to as high as 49 freaking percentage.

Question no. 1 to be raised is - why more reservation?
The probable answer is that the really deprived sections are never able to avail the advantages of reservation. Good news is that our scholarly Arjun Singhji realised that if the current quota is not enough to support the poor then increase the quota. What the hell? Where's his brain?

Ones campaigning for increased reservation quotas have often quoted - "Since it is difficult to classify the really needy people who need reservation, and since the benefits are not reaching the really deprived ones currently; increasing quotas is the only way to help them." Plain enough, you increase the room for reservation and it will be able to accommodate the real needy.

Somebody has to realise what is happeneing to reservation scene these days. Being a beauracrat's son, I have seen officers coming from reserved cateogaries, becoming IAS, IPS. These officers are rich enough to get coaching for their kids who are the ones who end up using reservation quota. There is real pressure on a few reservation cateogary kids, the ones with IAS fathers, to perform well. Given that they have all the money that the general catrogary (supposedly) have and added to that they have the reservation advantage, their fathers expect them to do well. Poor in the reservation cateogary only have reservation, no money for cocahing. Poor in general cateogary-----hmmm... God help them.

Looking into the roots of reservation we should see how the picking for cateogaries goes. The socially and economically backward classes of medival times were rewarded for the ages of toil and domination in terms of reservation. The UPPER castes (not today's, i mean upper castes of medival times) were punished for ill-treating these lads, no reservation for you all, now eat your lolipop.

The social scenario has completely changed and I don't know how many will call the enormous number of IAS and IPS from reservation cateogary as oppressed. Also that the upper caste of medival times are no less in any misery. In present India, you would have to be a buddha in one life to be lucky enough to be born in reserved cateogary house with money in the next life. There are plenty of poor in reserved catogary but they will never be able to push the rich in the reserved cateogary to get into the reservation room.

But the above system of picking the needy ones for reservation is absolutely stupid. If we can identify the poor by having TAX limits and we can have tax slabs, why not so in reservation? Why not have a need base allocation of advantage. Why should the sons CATEOGARY IAS keep becoming IAS as if it is their patriarchial blessing? The poor in cateogary won't get anything even if we reserve the whole 100%. Increasing reservation quota means that even the dumbest sons of reservation cateogary IAS fathers will get to IITs and IIMs with a little cocahing. The logic is definitely missing in this whole act.

NKC(National knowledge commission) convener, Mr. Mehta, is opposed to this move. He has opposed reservation going all the upto the proposed 49% in IITs and IIMs. Read from the links given below:
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/1910.html
Some miss Jayanthi from Delhi University has opposed his agitation. Once again logic is amiss here. She is from DU and is one of the cotributors to its majestic downfall. Read the link below.
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/1968.html
She is advising how IITs and IIMs should be run! Is she nuts? When did humans start learning toilet habits from dogs who pee in garden? When should people from IITs be taught by DU people on how to manage their affairs?

Final Verdict: Reservation should not happen on caste lines as that is trying to improve a social scenario that does not exist any more. Reservation should happen on a need base established on a credible income surveys. The data could be shared with IT department, they need it desperately.

Somebody do something or a Reservoir Dogs-II will be shot soon on Indian roads.

Theory of Evolution is crap, we have something new

2006-04-03T11:38:00.000-07:00

The ideas published in this blog are not mine alone and might be mentioned in other blogs too.

Me and gandy(Gandharva Bakshi, my big small friend) were once discussing that there is lot in the world that is not understood. Particluarly the evolution is not well understood and proposed theories have a million loop holes. So here are a few alternate theories which propose - "We did not evolve at all."

Theory 1: The BTP theory
Possible mentions of this part might be in Gandy's blog.

Me and gandy were wondering if Matrix, the movie, is an explaination to this. To begin, I will just explain how BTP(B.Tech. Projects) are done in IIT. The BTP is a 6 credit course kinda thing in which we have to publish a report, make a presentation, face the viva, meanwhile making the profs believe that we do not know what plagiarism is? If at all they do mention plagiarism, we try to get away by looking dumb and throwing all the blame onto our poor vocab. "We don't know what it is!"

Typical cases of BTP include ones where there is a new faculty involved. Such profs, mostly want their first few students to get throught with their vivas without hassel. So last year one of the profs actually gave two students his Ph.D thesis and asked them to take "INSPIRATION" from it. What the hell!! But there are others like me who are serious about it. There are others who aren't serious, but their experimental results are serious. Such a wonder can be achieved by intelligently modelling(false reporting) your data. Results please the viva commitee and mostly they award the fake readings a centum, meanwhile feeling sorry for the BoyWonder who will have to leave IIT and will not be able to continue his breathtaking discovery.

Coming back to the point, me and gandy thought - "What if all of us are BTPs. I mean the studd ones are a BTP simulation of some good student under god(i choose to give the generic name to the super guide of all BTPs). Others like me are BTPs of ones who are struggling to make through with good enough results in time. There are these imposter people on earth who are the BTPs that are the falsely-reported-data-made-to-look-good-kinds. The BTP simulations run until GOD takes a look at the code and evaluates it. After that the simulations are terminated, a process equivalent to death on the simulated earth. Hence forth the BTP codes are thrown into either of the two junk databases - Heaven or Hell.

Saddam was a BTP of some chemical engineer who was trying to build WMDs. Bad news is that Bush is the BTP of some crytography student who hacked into Saddam's makers research and punished his BTP. What the hell is up with those guys? They do something over there and the stick runs up our ass. Now see, Saddam's maker can always make a new BTP even if his old BTP was rejected up there and destroyed. But what about the BTP of innocent students whose BTPs had nothing objectionable but their BTPs got punished along with the rejected BTP, Saddam. A million people killed in the simulated world.

God has to sort out the adminstrative issues up there in his college. Some crude laws of his college cause a lot of havoc in this simulated college of mine. He wants a gaussian distribution of the quality of BTPs. Resultantly a thousand of simulated BTP people, the ones close to y=0 line on his graph, end up living in inferiority complex. Non engineers will hate this comment of mine.

Theory 2: The Big BOX theory (Bye
Bye Big Bang Theory)
My zambian friend Zambie from Zambia proposed this one.

Zambie says - Imagine a box. A black box. Very big, as big as the universe. I guess he meant that universe is a box. So.... ya... Inside the biiiig black box there are lot of marbles. On each marble there is a lot of dirt. That dirt particles are actually tinier(tiny compared to diemensions of 1st box and the marbles) black box which again have several marbles full of dirt and so on. Keep going down into the system recursively and we are at one level of complexity in such a system. The dynamics of this system can be explained as follows - There is GOD. I know you are frustrated to read that in my scientific publication, but then non-evolution centric universe dynamics need some GOD like thing for completeness. GOD has kids and one of those kids has this biggest black box as a toy. So he plays with it, sleeps with it. He Takes it into light(call that a day), puts it in a dark closet(call this a night). He throws it in anger(earthquake), puts it in real sun(remember our sun is just marble in the box) (call it global warming). Everything can be explained.

Better than evolution theory.

The story of Indian Chicken

2006-04-02T22:03:00.000-07:00

Debo sent me the following link a few days back.
http://www.hindu.com/2006/03/30/stories/2006033008942200.htm

It talks about the apathy that sports is subjected to, in India. A few very good points raised. One of the points was that India did a helluva lot to show off in the closing ceremony of the recenlty concluded Commonwealth games. They did so only to keep people optimistic about the arrangements that they would be making in 2010 CW games in New Delhi. So, they flew a bunch of Indian celebrities over there and made them perform or just show their faces. Aishwarya Rai was there to represent Indian Sport just like she is there to represent India everywhere irrespective of the context. I guess if Indian PMs were relaxed with the protocol issues they would be sending her to represent them even to places like SAARC and UN as their own proxy. Anyway how much do politicians otherwise know about policy decisions. Its beauracrats who do all the work other than signing it. So my bet is that send Aishwarya Rai to these diplomatic missions also. This way we might be using some external means of convincing people. I mean beauty is more compelling than a thousand words. On the same note I am reminded that in middle of the placement season one of our juniors asked me once - "Nalla, which is the most sought after company in IIT ?" I said plainly - "Girls".

Coming back to the point the people representing India over there were Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Aishwarya(ofcourse)..... Well what were gavaskar and Kapil doing there is also something to wonder. Since when was cricket even half a complete sport to be represented in CW games? CW games is a real sport event, and none of this kind ever cared to include cricket. Just because CW is all about old British terriotories Aus, Ind, Pak, WI, Eng, etc. they included cricket in 2002 on a trial basis and soon did away with it in the next game.

I couldn't get my hands on to the list of celebs representing India there, but I guess Dhanraj Pillay was not mentioned in any news paper even if he was there. Pillay i think will never be a sport icon unlike SG or SRT or Kapil. Where, in most places, the stature of sportsmen is decided by their contribution at a competitive international level event, it is not so in India. Cricket is played by 12 odd countries and which includes Zimbabwe and likes, which better not be mentioned. Pillay has performed miracles on field against the best in world; among 180 odd countries playing hockey. Also that becaue he fought with KPS Gill, there is a small chance that they will ever let him do anything with hockey ever again. Goodbye pillay.

So when I think of people like Dhanraj Pillay and Anju bobby George, who were "hockey-chickens and long jump-chickens" among "cricket-turkeys", I can say just one thing - "In a bird flu era, Chicken Istreeling ho ya pulling, sabki ho CULLING."

My guide sent me this one

2006-04-01T15:34:00.000-08:00

The Japanese have always loved fresh fish. But the waters close to Japan have not held many fish for decades. So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever.

The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish were not fresh. The Japanese did not like the taste. To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer.

However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen and they did not like frozen fish. The frozen fish brought a lower price. So fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks, fin to fin. After a little thrashing around, the fish stopped moving. They were tired and dull, but alive. Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference. Because the fish did not move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste. The Japanese preferred the lively taste of fresh fish, not sluggish fish.

So how did Japanese fishing companies solve this problem?
How do they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan?

To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks. But now they add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very lively state.

The fish are challenged.

As soon as you reach your goals, such as earning good money, getting a good position, starting a successful company, paying off your debts or whatever, you might lose your passion. You don't need to work so hard so you relax.

Like the Japanese fish problem, the best solution is simple. It was observed by L. Ron Hubbard in the early 1950's. "Man thrives, oddly enough, only in the presence of a challenging environment."

The Benefits of a Challenge

The more intelligent, persistent and competent you are, the more you enjoy a good problem. If your challenges are the correct size, and if you are steadily conquering those challenges, you are happy. You think of your challenges and get energized. You are excited to try new solutions. You have fun. You are alive!

Recommendations :

Instead of avoiding challenges, jump into them. Beat the heck out of them.

Enjoy the game. If your challenges are too large or too numerous, do not give up. Failing makes you tired. Instead, reorganize. Find more determination, more knowledge, more help.

Don't create success and lie in it. You have resources, skills and abilities to make a difference. Put a shark in your tank and see how far you can really go!

Objective Journalism? huh!!!

2006-04-01T15:07:00.000-08:00

Objective Journalism??? huh...

Before I begin on the "huh" part, I congratulate the current press and media for the positive changes they have brought. Press was a means to spread "IDEAS" when the likes of Tilak used to write. They exposed the fallacies and brutality of British government for social awareness. These days, there is a scam exposed everyday by every news channel. Everyday, they perform sting operations and uncover the filth of a police constable, a desperate neta and likes... All these brings the plight of common man to light.

But, I believe that this change is largely fuelled by competition in performing sting operations to get new stories and pressed by commercial interests. Therefore stories are reported but with filtering so as to satisfy the masala readers or without proper background. I present the analysis of the coverage of a few events in near past.

IISc attack: While everybody knows that a bunch of people came in a car (Ambassador got some publicity, as the name of the car never went amiss) and shot a few people. The press further followed with reporting the investigation in terrorist networks. So, we know that Mr.X, son of Mr.Y, father of master Z...was arrested as an suspect. A very complex picture of these terrorist networks was given. Information poured about the terror networks was more than people could digest, a flurry of names, they looked like copies of FIR. What was never reported was what happened immediately after the attack. What route of exit did the terrorist adopt on the IISc map. Did they encounter guards, if not then why? Although there might have been security lapses, common people will keep wondering, how they escaped so easily in broad daylight in such a populated area. Well, the news would reach someday, but I guess in the form of a over-dramatized representation like that of the D-company party on Star News.

Subscribing to various news feeds, it was disheartening to notice that foreign press reported the Japanese Encephalitis more than the Indian Press, which merely mentioned the close to 2000 deaths as another statistical figure.

A few cared to report about the 7000 odd poor people in slums who became homeless due to a Supreme Court Order, while others were busy reporting the definition of "Big-Fish" in supreme court order asking MCD to demolish the encroachments made by the wealthy lot. In, early nineties while most news papers were busy reporting the burned finger of Kapil Dev, none cared to notice the hardworking boy in a Muslim home bowling to pillars, later only to become India's hat-trick taker against Pakistan - Pathan. Thats acceptable, hero worship in this land dates back to Ramayan. But most missed to count the burns that the bus driver sustained while saving numerous people in the recent Delhi bomblast in Govindpuri. Even fewer noticed that while the problem among poor was illiteracy and health, the local leaders were able to illude them into believeing that names of their districts, villages and town were more important than their existence. Thus Bombay became Mumbai, Calutta became Kolkata... Very few realised that the solution to problems of Phalodi, a town in Jodhpur district, is not changing its name or making it a seperate district, but driving out corruption. The poor were once again made to fight for the wrong cause by local leaders.

Magazines proudly present Sex surveys, making them seem like the popular electoral mandate. In a land where talking to your life partner about sex is a taboo, these surveys are only represented by a very small lot. Yet they satisfy the readers who feel excited by the mere name of sex because its talk is kept away from them all their life. While press should be working to do away such taboos, it plays on the minds of ones who are engulfed by it.

Well thats Objective Journalism - fulfills all commercial objectives.

Why advertising sucks in India these days

2006-04-01T14:45:00.000-08:00

If you have had a chance to see a few ads on TV these days, you will be enjoying this article. It is written by an ad-Man himself, from Ogilvy & Mather (the people who make hutch and Bajaj Pulsar's-"definitely male" ads).

Its about the lack of creativity used in advertisement, a field which calls for creativity in the first place.

Have look if this interests you.

Link:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1432313.cms

Literature does not have to happen in books

2006-04-01T14:41:00.000-08:00

Have a look at the following links. Real good stuff to read.

1. On the US terror for terror policy
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20060116&fname=Column+Prem+%28F%29&sid=1

2. Real heroes
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20060109&fname=H2Lead+essay+%28F%29&sid=1

3. An article not on dogs, not specifically for dog lovers, leaves you surprised
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20060109&fname=H8Uncle+Vijay+%28F%29&sid=1

4. Rare article bringing some staggering facts out
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1350187.cms

5. A Jug Surraiya Classic
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1353847.cms

6. A rarity from Shoba De - Anything good from her is rare
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1363140.cms

7. BBC's rare WW2 archives: amazing articles

History and opinion:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwtwo/

Rare Momoirs:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/C54817

Miscellenous:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/world/2005/ww2_sixty_years_on/default.stm#startcontent

8. The Amul Story:
http://in.rediff.com/money/2005/sep/23spec.htm

9. A must read collector's edition of outlook - each article
is a gem
http://www.outlookindia.com/archivecontents.asp?fnt=20051017