A Passage to India

I never truly believed in god. I am not a blind believer and I question a lot, if not articulated then in my mind. I don't believe on great personalities and I am never interested in listening to them. But as it is said that exceptions occur for every possible thing in nature, I am no exception. There is one personality whom I truly venerate. I get goose bumps just by mention of his name. Hopelessness gives way to hope and light suddenly glows at the end of long dark tunnel. I am not writing this to start any discussion (We already have plenty of that) on good and dark side of Bapu.

No person can lead an unblemished life and Bapu is not an exception of that. It's going to be 100 years of journey that Bapu took to get a glimpse of India. When Mahatma Gandhi landed in India in 1915, mesmerized mass requested him to lead them in their struggle just as he did in South Africa. But Gandhiji declined. He has been away from India so long and he first wanted to understand India and Indians before claiming to become their voice. He traveled thousands of kilometers in 3rd class of Indian Railway to get the sense of India.

When I think of his journey in one century old India, I wonder how it would be in this new India. How much has it changed? What difference Bapu would find in today's India? Would he be happy, sad, astonished or shocked?

Let's live the Bapu' journey and see what has changed in 100 years.

Let's start from Kashmir. Nothing has changed except for the sight of ubiquitous military uniform and artificial drawn line across the body of Kashmir. Endless bickering of two countries and innocent citizens squeezed between them. Nothing has changed. It still has got its beauty, It is still located at the same latitude and longitude but what is missing is its soul which has been trapped somewhere between the skirmishes of two nations.

Coming down the line is our own Delhi. Nothing has changed here also except for “Pehle yaha Raja ki Darbar lagti thi, ab yaha AAP ki talwar chalti hai” (I don't think I need to translate into English. Just scrap it thinking it as crap ;)). Gandhiji will get his life time of shock if he decides to sit inside the parliament house. The sacred house of democracy which was supposed to be for people, created by people has everything in it except for the people. Janta is missing from every power corridor of Delhi. Nothing has changed, it was missing then in 1915 also and it is still missing after 100 years.

Next journey to Bihar, UP and north east is no different. He couldn't be more horrified.

One would expect things to change in 100 years for good, not to exacerbate it further. You might argue about all those progress during those years. Yes progress has happened, but it has only changed the packaging. Content is still rotting inside the shining package and our leaders are fighting among themselves to give more polish to package and make it shinier.

Journey of Gandhiji would not be any different from the one taken in 1 century back. For name sake Indian railway might have removed the 3rd class but today's 2nd class is much worse than that third class.

Numbers are what dominate our mind today – GDP number, IIP number, this index-That index. Quantity has eclipsed the quality, but what we forget are that numbers always grow with time and growing number can never be indicator of progress. But we keep trying to console ourselves by these numbers.

Gandhiji dreamt of a healthy India governed by healthy, educated and spiritual Indians. He dreamt of self-sufficient and content economy. We might have traversed the 66 years after the independence but we could barely increase our %age contribution in world economy. Everything is still at the same place what it used to be.

So what has changed in between? Nothing, except for oriental face of ruler instead of western face. Motto is same, intention is same – Keep ruling, keep exploiting. Jai Hind :)

Why I am Against Women's Day?

“Tu to mera beta hai,” (you are truly my son) – is the highest accolade a parents can bestow upon their daughters. 

“You are just like a girl,” – that's the meanest thing you can say to a boy. 

These two common things people say reflect upon the state of our society. This is the position of women in our society – degraded, dilapidated and something of an inferior creature. Is it the same society that wants to celebrate the “Women's day”? The irony couldn't have been more profound. Had there been a “Slave's day” in 18th century America, it would be quite like the Women's day. 

The well-scripted play to seal women's fate has ancient roots and has been performed uninterrupted since then with brilliant modification. The women's day does nothing but spread pepper over the wound. The very existence of such a day indicates a sense of differentiation in women's position in society, as if they were unalike beings. Being a woman means that you have to tolerate, you have to sacrifice, you have to be content, you have to be ideal, virtuous, etc. And the women's day celebrates all these so-called "greatnesses" of women. 

Can you see the brilliant design behind all this? There is no men's day; there is absolutely no obligation of greatness on men. They are free, free to do anything they desire. A lapse on the part of men can be shrugged off using the refrain “men will be men”. If men cheat, it's their inherent nature, signalling an entitlement to absolute freedom. Using all this freedom, mental peace, lack of social weight upon their shoulders, what is stopping them from achieving higher greatness? Absolutely nothing. 

In our society, there are only two positions available to women: either on a pedestal or in hell. You do what society expects you to do – be the ideal daughter by enduring and obeying, or the ideal wife, daughter-in-law, and the ideal mother – the society will worship you as a goddess and following any deviation from this behaviour, a place in hell stands assured for you. We accept this as our fate and relish in trying to be called a so-called-goddess. The society has cleverly put this "goddesses" tag on us, so that we can spend our entire lives performing the goddess role. 

Each country takes pride in their unique culture and strives to protect it. But whose responsibility is it to protect its so-called-culture – its women. If we take the small example of clothing and attire – the westernisation of men is a non issue. They can don western attires and simultaneously vow to discard the western civilisation. Women, however, have a stricter code – they have to be traditional and take upon themselves almost the entire weight of such phoney culturalism. 

I went to Tirupathi once. There were instructions written outside the temple premises that only traditional clothes were permitted inside; and as a result women wearing denims would not be allowed inside the temple. Yet surprisingly, there was not even as much of a glance given to the men in jeans (all the men were wearing jeans) in their code. There was only one question on my mind – why was this obligation to be traditional only applicable to women? I vowed never to visit Tirupathi again. 

This is what the women's day stands for – it remind us of our position in society, of the compact boundaries drawn around us within which we must live and suffer. It remind us of the role of greatness that we have to perform. 

I refuse to be great; I want to be normal. Hence, I renounce the women's day and its celebration.

What Next?

Human beings are supposed to be social animals. They cannot live alone, and weave a web of humanity around them to survive. This web grows bigger and bigger. When this web becomes unmanageable, it is broken down into smaller parts. In the beginning all those parts are homogeneous but gradually some dominant parts emerge and divide their area of influence, defining their own boundaries. 

Human evolution has moved in such a manner, from humanity towards society, then to clan or state, and from state to nation, etc. Along with the clusters come economies of different shapes and sizes. 

(This is how I interpret evolution. The actual process is of course, a lot more complex.) 

This story is of the economic history of mankind. Don't worry, I am not about to bore you with economic mumble-jumble. But I have been wondering about what big transition is next in line for us, and that curiosity led me to write this blog. Homo sapiens emerged not so long ago – around 10,000 BC – which is hardly 12,000-13,000 years before now. They started with very basic – hunting and gathering. Back then, Man's brain was not as developed as that of the Modern Man, but it was enough to manage their economy. The next revolution came with agriculture, and that's when all these stories of superior and inferior men started. We had two kinds of economy now – one section of men chose to keep hunting while the others occupied themselves in settled agriculture. The society with the settled agriculture economy became superior, and hence more likely to rule over the society that was still living off more primitive means. 

This system more or less continued till the industrial revolution, after which manufacturing replaced (and became more superior to) agriculture as the prime economic mover. Blue-collar workers dominated the countryside peasants. The entire manufacturing economy survived on raw material and the search for market for its products, and thus started the search for colony and the system of colonisation. 

By the mid-1920s all developed countries had moved one step up on the ladder of economy – towards the service economy. By this time all colonies were free and had started adopting manufacturing to drive their own growth. By now the service economies of developed countries were fed up of the manufacturing economy of developing countries. 

The process of evolution towards the next link in the economic chain has now already begun with the developed economy moving to a knowledge-based economy (quaternary economy), which is being fed by the emerging services sectors in developing countries. Meanwhile, some laggard economies are still in the manufacturing stage and some are in agriculture. 

As you can see, the economic ladder climbs up the hunter/gatherer-agriculture-manufacturing-service-quaternary stages. In the modern world, some countries are even skipping the manufacturing stage to directly jump to the service economy (India is a somewhat an example). So what would happen when every country in world reaches the currently known zenith of the economic ladder? 

How would the demands of manufacturing and agriculture be fulfilled? Who will drive the quaternary economy? 

Is the entire economic system of this world woven around the concept that there will always be gaps between countries, with one set consuming and other supplying? Does it mean that the gap between a developed, developing and the least developed economy is never going to go away? Is it only a dream that one day every country will reach the zenith of human development? 

Yes it is. Until and unless the present systems of economy are not done away with, we will not move to the next step of economic evolution (after the industrial revolution). Our present economic ladder system has colonial mentality at its base: that one country need not move up the ladder of human development in order to benefit another. 

Each and every country needs to identify their own strength and develop around that strength. After that, comprehensive economic cooperation needs to be nurtured among these specialised strengths to fill the economic gaps of each country. Then only we can hope to survive and sustain in the long term.

Deaf Generation

After the invention of computer, it has constantly been prophesized that robot will replace mankind and will rule the world in future. But what no one has ever dreamed that prophecy will come true so soon. Here we are, in 2nd decade of 21st century, a walking live robot or worse a puppet with Strings in multiple hands.

 This is the generation of deaf. Deaf people walking robotically all over the place – Scene just like in Matrix. Hell breaks loose in our surrounding, but we walk in our regular pace as if nothing has happened, nothing fall on our deaf ear – plugged with an ear phone ;)

It is ubiquitous, it is everywhere – while jogging, travelling, walking, hanging from crowded bus, driving, studying, working, and eating. It has become the world’s dearest object – nothing more is important than listening song with dear ear phone – what does it matter if people behind you are shouting for help or some bomb is exploding behind. Everything is behind me, ahead me is me and and my iPod.

In 18th century England was running huge trade deficit with China and their every efforts were failed to close this deficit (As they hardly had anything to sell to China). They devised a novel method and started black marketing opium to Chinese people. Once the Chinese were addicted, English were the king. All out flowing gold (which England use to pay China to buy silk, tea etc) were back in England through opium.

Earphone is today’s opium, efficiently addicting people to such an extent that they are nothing but a puppet of music and electronics’ industry. This addiction is infecting the masses with an alarming rate but it remains completely unnoticed.

The sad fact of the world is that the fate of millions always remains in few hands. Addiction of ear phone is just an example of how behavioral pattern of generation upon generation is being changed to tap the unexplored area of profit, without thinking of its implication. Music was once celebration of life and was a way to connect – but it has gradually become a device to disconnect with the world. Invention of recorder, tape, Walkman, iPod etc was not a life changing invention (not even necessary) but they came along to change consumer behavior to tap a huge market. And result is apparent now – a deaf generation, who would kill you if you dare to unplug them.

May be my point is little (or big) lost here. It is hard to see any point in anything which is against invention or innovation. It’s the accepted way of life and an expected norm of moving forward. Any deviation from this established norm will be branded as anti-development. But again, is development always good? Is growing beyond 7 ft and keep growing till life time good for mankind? My point again is that we need to define the boundary, we need to identify our limit, Otherwise world would crash behind us and we would keep walking with devil singing lullaby to our ear.

Adaptation to alteration – Is human race knocking the door of Dark Age?

World is moving fast, as fast as sometimes I feel my head spinning.  Every day one and other technologies are constantly becoming obsolete by one or other new technologies. Dynamicism is at its zenith and everything is in it’s engulf. Rate of technological progress has far exceeded the rate of human population growth.

So, are we at the height of civilization, or as we say height of renaissance or age of enlightenment?

Let me define the word enlightenment, of course as per my own definition. Enlightening is a beautiful word and it has ability to give a beautiful meaning to one’s existence. An enlightened human is a complete human being with complete cognizance of his/her surrounding and ability to cope with it effectively keeping in mind of every macro and micro life existed in planet. Is today’s technocratism leading to us to that?

Since the time of Darwin mankind has known the secret of adaptism. Adaptation has become the buzzword and has been the matter of pride for mankind. But in the subsequent 250 years, concept of adaption was slowly replaced by concept of alteration. Alteration is the buzzword today – if we can’t adapt, we alter. If we can’t cope up with nature we alter the nature itself. Technological progress, genetic modification, destruction of natural habitat, examples are numerous.

When we talk about impending danger on human race (only human race actually, other species are encouraged to preserve just to facilitated existence of human race, i.e. to maintain balance in ecosystem) by global warming and numerous other reason, we only talk about macro facilitator like logging, mining, infrastructure etc etc. We never talk about the micro development in our life which is actually leading to these macro reasons. We never talk about everyday small small technological invention or innovation. We hail those technocracies as they make our life simpler.  Writing a letter was replaced by mobile phone. Not only time taken in communication was greatly reduced it also relieved the pain inflicted by pen on delicate hand of human being.  Pen is replaced by keypad or keyboard which was faster and much easier.  Very soon human hand stared tiring out with keypad and then came the touch screen. Why push a button to type, just touch it. Several micro second of human life was saved by switching from pushing to touching. Now we are tired of touching to, our delicate hand is gradually becoming incapable of doing that, so we are coming up next with smart phone which can understand from our gesture what we want, after some years they would be capable to compile our mind directly and work accordingly. We don’t even have to blink our eyes. Some time it’s just dreadful to think that where it is going to stop? Earlier we used our brain to adapt ourselves to our environment, but now we are slave of our brain and working tirelessly to face altercation with our environment.

We have to know where the stopping point is. The much talked invention and innovation have to have some limit. And that limit should be defined by their usefulness in our ecosystem. Today millions of human being is involved in this mindless innovation in order to make human life much simpler. But this is resulting in making our life much complex and thrusting us to a kind of dark age where everything would be beyond our comprehension.  When nature shows its wrath, we are as helpless as those cave man of 12000 BC with more damage which could ever been inflicted in history of mankind. How technology has made it better. Instead of participating in mindless technological race (Google, Microsoft, IBM etc etc) why aren't we putting our energy into real human problem - the problem of disaster, suffering, poverty, population, habitat loss, species extintion, again the list is very long. 

I might sound like a doomsday predictor moron but we are at the juncture of falling into a dark pit from where it would be near impossible for human race to recover.  We have to say enough is enough. We have thought enough about our own comfort and development. We have achieved enough. Now it’s the time to think about those who have been constantly neglected in 10000 years history of mankind. Now it’s time to go back. Now it’s time to go back to nature and nurture it. We have graduated from the college of development long back and forgotten all our lessons. It’s time to go back to school to learn the basic.

Sholay ke funde

Yesterday my long-long pending childhood wish was fulfilled, thanks to the new 3D technology. Jurassic park was re-released in 3-D and I got opportunity to watch for the first time in my life and that also on big tantalizing screen. My patience (resolute to not to watch it on television ;) ) was amply rewarded, in short I loved it.

Jurassic park encouraged me to watch one of the Bollywood iconic movie (of course on YouTube – Sholay, which topped in my big unwatched famous Bollywood movies list.

Next few minutes I am going to bore you with, which might look like a movie review, but it’s not. I just intend bore you more by highlighting some of the problems in our society and Sholay is just a facilitator, so no offence to Sholay fansJ.

My observation started from the scene where Sanjeev Kumar urf Thakur recounted his first encounter with jai and Biru. Scene involved encounter between bundle of dacoits and trio of Jai, Beeru and Thakur.  One by one faceless dacoits were fell through the bullet of our hero (though numbers never seemed to be dwindling), my heart cried - hey stop it, atleast know the person before killing. How many endless faceless persons are sacrificed just like that in between the war of our hero and villain? Does anyone wonder what their life story is, of course they are not just born to live invisible and die invisible. I have seen many war movies, mostly from Hollywood. Huge army marching ahead at the order of king and one by one being felled at the hand of opposition. It feels like that those are army of wood men not a real human with flesh and pain. Hero is injured, and then whole world is at pain to save him. But what about that dead faceless soldier on the fields who has left his/her family behind in search of better life for them.

My 2^nd observation was, needless to say, caricature of female character. I don’t want to elaborate much but it was humiliating to watch as always. An ideal widow bahu of a comparatively progressive Thakur living a completely black out or I say white out life, what do you want to convey? Is this the image of perfect female? Any way since its 70s movie, it’s pardonable. But I don’t think much has improved in our cinema world since 70s, except for the technology, money power and fancy dresses.

The machoism was all rampant and it’s impossible to imagine how many people and movies and in turn through those movies again how many millions it has inspired in last 27 years. Any way I feel like talking about these is completely moo point (If you are wondering what’s moo then you have to refer Joey’s dictionary ;)).

The plain devil caricature of villain was nothing but overwhelming. Of course you enjoy it in movie and your whole conscious cries out to kill that bastard and nothing gives you more satisfaction than gruesome end of that dare devil.

The plain portray of black and white poses a social dilemma to our society, and movies are just exacerbating that. The depiction of merciless killing gives moral authority to the person who wants to bring their own version of justice and how many people are sacrificed at the altar of this justice doesn't matter. I don’t know if this happen in real world or not but realization of even 0.01% of these movies is catastrophic for the civilization.

Gandhiji has always said that, don’t hate the man but hate the wrongness in him, don’t kill the man but kill the devil inside him. Our bapu knew that every man possesses both dark and bright side. For some one bright side is more prominent and for someone this dark side is more prominent. Killing a man would kill both side of his and world would gain nothing out of it but killing the dark inside man would bring his/her bright side to the world. Every person has a story, a history, a trail and its necessary to traverse those trails to understand that person.

Any way coming to the point, I couldn't finish the movie as it was difficult to digest without killing the human inside me. When a Dinosaur rips off the man without thinking anything it is understandable, but when a man does the same thing, well no comment.  

What’s the moral of the story?

I got to create my own version of Sholay.

Are you ready to watch? ;)

Irrationality of rational

Human being is supposed to be a rational animal. But throughout the history its action could hardly be qualified for the definition of rationality even though the definition of rationality has been created by none other than but human being itself. When Herbert Simon adopted the concept of bounded rationality by rejecting rationality, he was so much correct in assuming so.

When an animal make a choice, it makes so by having a full cognizance of situation and a clear cut goal. I don’t think they ever have any hesitancy erupting out of sense of ignorance. But we human being are fully aware of out mental limitation and our choices are blinded by our own sense of limitation, which we term as a rational choice in a given situation

When the Finance minister presented the budget yesterday his hands were supposedly tied with different constraint. Galloping inflation, dipping growth numbers, sluggish industrial output, adverse global situation, high oil price, upcoming election and finally disenchantment of mass (which is definitely not new) , doesn't really provide a smooth ride to FM. Hence the resultant package came out as budget has been termed as a rational choice. Does it really present a rational choice and if yes then rational for whom and rational by what?

My motive here is not to comment on budget or any political situations. Situation related to Budget here is just the metaphor to the various situation faced by us in our daily life. We eke out a rational decision out of myriad of conditions or should I say that we just adjust our decision to make it rational in the given circumstance.

I guess I am using lots of jargon and really getting lost in the maze of irrationality ;). Anyway, today I was just talking to a friend and talk just moved over to the matter of felling of trees for commercial gain. Question was just very simple – why can’t we find another way instead of cutting the trees. This simple question has multiple dimensions which is definitely not that simple. A tree planted in the small plot, coming in the way of building a shelter for a small farmer has to go. What rationality we can put up there.  We can cry over builders flattening out a forest but we won’t hesitate if we do same thing when we buy a plot to build house. Land is expensive and who can give it free to tree for sheltering.

Why human life is so complex? Why can’t we take decision just like an average animal? If at all our decision is rational how come it keeps pounding on our conscience. We ourself are responsible for knitting a complex web around our life, but the sad thing is that we are not even trying to understand and stop this. Our constant endeavour to find rationality has catapulted us in world of irrationality L

Eve and Adam: The story retold

Once upon a time there was a tribe. A tribe with wise men and women. Tribe’s affair was seen by them collectively with mutual consultation. Tribe has been gifted with nature’s bounty and plenty was available for them to live their life peacefully. Power struggle was unknown to them as their desires were supplemented by contentment with the resource available to them.

Tribe had a gift from their ancestors – A gift of knowledge in form of “knowledge of tree”. This tree has been bestowing wisdom to tribe for centuries. The mere presence of tree had empowered tribe with ancient knowledge of art of living.

In their perfect heaven there existed two beautiful children – Adam and Eve. They lived happily by complying the simple custom of tribes and continuously growing to join the league of wise men and women.

Once a creature from far away land came to this magical land. It was astonished to see the perfect balance of life in this strange land. It came to know about “Knowledge of tree”. It assumed that knowledge of tree is the secret of the happiness of this land and if it could have a byte from the Tree’s fruit then it could also achieve that happiness.

So it went to tree to pluck the fruit but while doing so it was cornered by Adam and Eve. Both children were astonished as no one in tribe ever bothered to pluck the fruits from knowledge tree. They offered the creature delicious fruits from other trees.

Adam asked it: Why are you plucking that fruit, it’s not eatable. If you are hungry we have lots of trees with delicious fruits, I can bring those to you.

Creature felt as if it was caught while doing a crime. It did not know why it felt that as it was not committing any crime or breaking any rule. But somewhere inside it told him that whatever it was trying to do is not good. But it wants to be as happy as tribe’s people so it ignored its inner voice and decided to misguide the children

It told them: This is the tree of wisdom, its fruit might not be delicious but it will make you wiser than others. You can rule others by being superior to them, so take it with me and you can make the world better place to live.

Children were surprised with its talk but they took it as they did not see any harm in tasting a fruit. The creature happily left the land by accomplishing its goal. Children returned to home.

By eating fruit of wisdom they gained a different wisdom with a different view of world where they can exploit the resources more and bring more comfort to their tribes. They started planning as they thought it was in best interest of their tribes. The elder of tribes were worried about the children’s idea and they warned them against it.

As the time went Adam and Eve grew more ambitious and they thrived to prove themselves to the elders of their tribe. By sensing the impending danger elders of tribe called for the council. Eve advocated her ideas passionately as she believed that it will bring more happiness in tribe. But Adam sensed the opportunity to discredit Eve and implement his plans. He told tribe that he is ready to relinquish his ambitious plans as he took byte of fruits of knowledge tree on insistence of Eve, and for the moment he was blinded by the magic of fruit but he can see the consequences clearly now, so he is ready to subjugate to tribes rule.

Elders were elated by Adam’s subjugation and angry with Eve’s persistence. Tribe gave the verdict and for the first time in history they ask Eve to obey Adam. And from their started the subjugation of many Eves. Though intension of Adam was only his personnel conquest which he thought was in his tribe’s interest but he started a precedent unintentionally which has been continuing for time immemorial.

And since then the human lived unhappily ever after L

Note: Please pardon the plain unstory like language, I am not a story writer J

D - Year

Another year passed without even realising that I even lived that year for a momentJ. It’s interesting to think how many of such years would end before my journey ends ;). Any way that’s not my point for writing this blog. It’s good to write a compilation for whole year so that I could read it in years to come and could live my unlively memory ;).

Despite being forecasted as dooms year and marker of end of humanity, 2012 had something which had potential to infuse positive energy. Of course it was the number ‘2012’, which is a very positive number and happened to be my favourite too (I favour even number over odd number). It was also a leap year (I also love leap year) and it also started on Sunday J. So I was buzzing with excitement in Dec, 2011 in anticipation of a year which would finally be mine. But year started with lots of personnel disappointments and family problems and I am not going to bore you with all those detailsJ. But as always, disappointments and problems proved as a disguise in blessing and infused a new resolve in me to fulfill my dream (although these D&Ps moved along with me throughout ;)).

When I try to take a look back to 2012, it all seems blur, Blur not of forgetfulness but of fast moving jet. Year passed so quickly that I have a feeling of nausea which you usually have after the roller coaster ride. Any way if I press my eyes hard into those blurs, I get some silver lining, so I can’t say that year was so bad.

Despite being trap in the cyclone of double recession, worsening situation of global market, bleak public morale, endless  crime, corruptions etc etc, I think it was the magic of number 2012 that made us walkthrough the year unscathed.

Don’t scowl on my logic, I need some optimism and here I find it in magic number, so go to hell.

Any way I’ll stop whining about myself here and instead whine for others, lets Analyse D-year for other (Doom or Dream)

Doom:

•  Definitely for Iranian people as European union decided to walk the path of big brother and imposed embargo against them
•  History too was not spared when Ansar Dine destroyed the shrine (UNESCO Cultural heritage site) Timbuktu (Mali) on the name of religion. Can you believe that?
• Our beloved former Army chief (I hope you understand), when he tried to go against corruption. Recently I heard that Z-security has been snatched from him. Definitely not good for us to see that L
• Corporate world too didn’t love this year with high interest rates maintained by RBI, GAAR brought by Pranab da and 122 spectrum licence cancelled by Supreme court, could anything be more worse :P
•  My Dravid left cricket, a fatal blow for ‘my’ cricket world L (sorry started about me again :P)

Anyway lots of other things like death of so and so, Greek economic crisis, Social crisis in India (Corruption and rape at the top), terrorism, natural disaster, ethnic clashes etc etc, but I don’t want to scare you all a lot before the beginning of new year so let’s talk about people for whom it was a happy happy yearJ

Dream:

• Of course Obama comes 1^st for getting his 2^nd term, though Modiji is not far behind for getting his 3^rd ;)
•  Don’t forget our young CM Akhilesh Yadav, ascending on the throne with all those promises and freshness. I wonder where are all those now?
• Pranab ji finally bid good bye to politics and got his place in history book with the chair of Presidency of India. Now he can finally drool on his chair peacefully.
•  Hey just remember, 6 medals for India in Olympic, that was my happiest J (oops)
• The Illusive Higgs particle has finally been found after years of expensive search ;)

Any year would be always a mixture of dream and doom. 2012 is not unique in this case, but still it would be imprinted on our mind with its vibrant sweet and sour memories. I know 2013 is exactly not my favourite number, it’s not even leap year and it’s not starting with Sunday but one thing I know that it’s in my hand to make this year as a dream year for me. So just let’s forget 2012 and leap into the dreamy world of 2013.

A happiest new year to all of youJ. Cheers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

call a spade a spade

Modi is on the verge of winning the Gujarat election again. I never had even a speck of doubt on his impending victory. In fact I would have voted for him, had I been in electoral roll of Gujarat, after all what choices we have. Modi is the best among the worst surrounding us. 

The vicious campaign around Modi cult (by media) has drawn attention of common man and made it to the hot topic of social media. Politics is a complex game which is beyond the comprehension of common person like us. But if I could claim to understand the ‘ABC’ of politics then I would claim my life that these campaigns are orchestrated by Modi and these Media moguls are nothing but his puppet.

How convenient is for a politician to percolate all his politics to the masses without even trying much. This is what happening here. Media spew venom against Modi which in turn unite the common man to save this so called ‘Vikas Purush’ who is so called victim of the mindless campaign of intellectual society. Media plays the ‘Muslim Card’ (Which exactly acts like a Hindutva Card), which mobilise the Hindu vote for Modi.

It is often asked that why Gujarat (2002), issue is still alive when it did not take much time for other riots to be buried in the course of history. I ask the same question – ‘Why is that so? How come media still has the interest in the same issue when it does not show any hesitancy in throwing many issues into the dustbin in search of new one, until they have not any vested interest hidden in this? My question is who is benefiting more from this controversy? Who is winning election after election and support of more middle class from this? Definitely it’s not the victim of Gujarat or the supporter of democracy or secularism. Secularism has only gone to the brink and left the space for more division in the society – a division between Modi supporter and Modi opponent.  Had the media been more interested in getting justice for riot victim they would have left the matter on court on worked behind the scene instead of jumping up and down on every breathe taken by Modi. They have acted exactly like the way Modi’s PR would work. I can’t say what they have got in exchange for this service.

What sadden me most from this whole affair is that the real issues have been left miles behind. It’s only about the personality war. Today its Modi, tomorrow somebody else would be following his path and the real question is whether this path is really taking us forward or we are being pushed way backward by this whole set of illusion weaved around us. Is there really any way to get out of this deep web? Future looks bleak. There is no one around us who can show us some light, which is not an illusion but really a flame of enlightenment. It’s not about Modi; it’s about whole breed of politicians like him. They are the only alternative and we are forced to accept that. My only hope is that we could stop making fuss about it and start calling a spade a spade.