Beauty and the Beast

How many times we have read the stories of beautiful princesses, ladies with magnificent beauty or a beautiful damsel in distress? Beauty has always been glorified to such an extent that it often overshadows any virtues that mankind may possess. All these overhype about beauty that I have been hearing since my childhood, left me wondering that what it would be like to live in a world that does not have a differentiation line dividing mankind based on their look?

It’s not that I am not enamored by the magnificence of the beauty. Story of Cinderella, Snow White and multiple other beautiful princesses has nonetheless dazzled me. It was a general accepted idea that any uncle or brother should have a beautiful wife. A simmering blindfold made up by millions of stories, movies and social heresy is on eyes of each of us that dazzles us to a divine effect of beauty. The effect of that blindfold has been wearing off for some time (For me) and in the process it has led me to realize the ugly truth behind the notion of beauty. Suddenly my mind has started hitting me with questions about the logic of the rules of this illogical world.

Why beauty is important? Why a beautiful person should be credited with extra merit that might tower all other merits. A person does not choose their look, they are just born with it. Why such a quality on which mankind has no control should be the dominating factor. We do not choose the way we look, and don’t earn our look too then why should be we rewarded/punished for something we never worked for.  

You might argue that talent count too. Nobody would like a silly and beautiful person. But that just an empty argument. We all know that the effort a simple looking person has to put to make an effect on society and how easy it comes to an attractive person. And what about “made-in-Heaven” marriages? This “so called” holy and life size decision is made purely based on look. “Looking for a fair, beautiful/Handsome Bride/Groom”, who want a non-fair and ugly one?

To a certain extent our professional life has come to be defined by our merit (though so called beautiful person still has some edge, which of course is regardless of their merit), our personal and social life is still largely defined by the way we look. Men kind has always tried to eliminate variable from their life. We have always tried to write our destiny since the time memorial. But why we have failed to eliminate the biggest variable from our life – “Our Look” – on which we have no control. If we closely look at this issue then we can narrow this problem down to the one half of the humanity. While the one half – male – has been able to successfully elevate their merit upon their look (not completely though), the other half – Female – is still being perished under the tight shackle of beautiness. Looking beautiful has been the prime motive of female since the time immemorial and this convention is only growing stronger. I often see parents brimming with pride on their beautiful daughter, as though she has won the biggest crown purely on her merit. Has she?

The chain of beauty has been throttling us, slowly and gradually sipping the life out of us. What worry you have in your life if you are a fair maiden, and how treacherous the life path is for a simple girl and that’s just because of an accident, an accident called “Gene”. The curse of beauty has been made permanent on the femalekind by trillion dollars of “Beauty” industry. All you have to do is look pretty to stand out in this world.  If you do not pass the eligibility criteria then don’t worry our trillion dollar industry is working hard to elevate you to that position, which has nevertheless been defined by them.

The biggest culprit are our art and literature. Why god/goddess, heroes/heroines etc are portrayed as beautiful and villain as ugly? Why a good person is to be beautiful and bad person to be ugly? Who defines the criteria of beauty? We have talked about discrimination based on caste, race, religion, gender, class etc. Why have we not yet added the discrimination criteria of “look”, which is the most prevalent form of discrimination all over the world? I guess we don’t have answer for that. We might achieve gender disparity in next 1000 years but we still wouldn’t dare to speak against “Look Disparity”. Ours is a society of hypocrites and we would continue to be hypocrite. The real tragedy is that, now I wish that blindfold is tightened on my eyes again so that I do get the courage of living in the world of hypocrites.

Innovation, Invention or Annihilation

I would hate myself for quoting the one of the most hated villain of Harry Potter – “Progress for the sake of progress must be discouraged”. But what was dangerous in that context is very much relevant in today’s context.

The meaning of progress might differ from person to person. For someone moving towards betterment, some might define it as finding solution and solving problem or for some it is just moving from status quo. We might not realize but in today’s world the term progress sugar coated in jargons like innovation, invention etc has reduced to nothing but giving push to “status quo”. A slicker phone, a device that could take command from your eye movement, making Nano devices into Pico, femto or atto device – it’s just how far you can think. It’s all about what next, not about what purpose the progress is serving.

Many of you sneer at me for being so anti-technological. You would love to brand person like me as anti-progress, traditionalist etc etc. Remember the middle century, when church used to persecute scientists. That was the religious crusade. Today is the world of science crusade, anyone having doubt about so called scientific progress deserve social and political crucification. I would still put my thought forward. Take a step back and think what purpose these 250 years (taking industrial revolution as base) of scientific progress has served? At first lets just talk about the indicators of Human Development Index (HDI), which is a generally acceptable criteria.

Mean year of schooling of the world as a whole is not more than 5 years (lowest being less than 1 year for Burkina Faso and Highest for UK 13.8 years). In Ancient Greece, China and India children used to get on an average 5 years of education. Worldwide life expectancy is 71 years but there are around 30 countries whose life expectancy vary within 45-55 years. That’s certainly not better than what we had in before and early Christian era. We have made phenomenal progress in terms of getting cure of diseases and controlling spread of many communicable diseases that has contributed in increasing life expectancy. But at that front also (which is actually a genuine scientific achievement) we have nonetheless become prisoner of our own so called broad mindset – “progress for the sake of progress”. Once we didn’t have enough problem to find solution we started creating problem and that is what is happening in world of pharmaceutical research today. One pill for every damn problem, who cares for the source of the problems or the consequences of solution being creator of more problems.

Moving to the next indicator – that is GNP per capita. Talking about wealth, are we wealthier or well off today? Wealth is a relative term and counting them in terms of rupees or dollars would be as misleading as terming Voldemort as source of all evil. Your wealth should be able to fulfill all your needs, wants and desires. If we quantify those criteria then certainly we are much poorer than our predecessors and our wants and desires are multiplying faster than increase in our wealth.

So all in all we are not better off than what we were before. There was a time when progress was necessary to save children, to ward off diseases, to remove ignorance etc. I wouldn’t list hunger, as earth has always provided us enough to lead a healthy life and men has always found a way to get it from nature either its primitive agriculture, hunting or gathering, technology has broadened the choice of food and that doesn’t mean it has made it better. So there was a time when technological progress was a tool to problem solving. When we had less problems, then technology transformed itself problem solver to problem creator. More the merrier, and hence it remained relevant, not only relevant it has become next god. We might talk and talk about human achievement but a cursory glance at our surrounding would tell us that nothing has changed. The more we are connected, the more distant we are, the more we are safe, the more prone to danger we are, the more we achieve, the more we are losing, the more we solve, the more problem we are creating. It’s just a battle of moving to and fro from your status quo. You move an inch forward and you are hurled 2 inches backward.

The hell has opened. I am ready to be crucified :P

Fact, Fantasy, History and us

I have always struggled with queerness of history. How do you come to term with something whose interpretation is wide open, whose horizon is limitless? Physical Science mostly deals with inanimate objects that can be categorized, characterized with clear distinction and any change in those characters can clearly be captured and predicted. History could be termed as an imprecise science that has to deal with human being and that’s what make it wide open for different interpretations by different people or groups.

What makes me wonder is how we come to conclusion and arrive at a sequence of events that are woven by historians based on inadequate evidence. Perhaps that’s the reason that different interest groups are able to come up with their own version of history. That’s the reason we have left, right and different other ideologies that differs enormously in their interpretation of historical events.

Mankind has always looked for an identity to cling upon, in short term its religion, caste, race etc and in long term it’s always their history. That’s the reason history has always been subject of political scrutiny. It has been tool to influence mind and gain political score and that’s what has been happening in India today.

History of India is as complicated as (even more than) its geography and its diversity. In 1947 when India breathed its long overdue free air, it was a broken nation, nation with widespread poverty, hunger, illiteracy and was mired in deep muck of caste, creed, regionalism and communalism. It has nothing to be proud of except for some moment of Gandhi and Nehru. It was nothing more than a free beggar in a wide world street. Nothing changed much in subsequent years, thanks to the inherited colonial mentality and administration (Though honest effort of many leaders cannot be denied). We remained poor and scorned by western nation and denial continued. Denial of what we are, what have we become, and we instead clanged on some ancient glorious past to get past the inferiority complex of holding beggar bowl in front of the shiny suited captain America. What does it matter what we are at present, when we have inherited a glorious colourful cultural past and these new wealthy western nations are nothing but some money seeking uncultured lot with no past at all.

It all reminds me of a scene from Harry potter and half-blood prince where Marvolo Gaunt (Voldemort/Tom Riddle’s grand Father) who was living in the filth and obscurity but was full of pride for being heir of Slytherin that made him in constant denial of his present situation. But at least his pride was based on facts, but I am not even sure of what versions of our history have ability to tower all our misery and pain – version interpreted by left or version interpreted by right?

I don’t claim to have all those intellectual capability to refute or corroborate any version but as an ordinary Indian with limited intellectual capability I would like to raise just one question that has troubled me from my childhood. With 5000 years of glorious history why we have so few achievements that we can count on our finger tips? With hardly 400-500 years of history why achievement of USA has filled pages after pages. With same age as ours China has much more to boast than us (at least it was never ruled the way we were). I tried to find these answers in many history text books but I never could. It was same as the advertisement on Doordarshan when India’s only achievements were counted in form of Sachin Tendulkar and Aishwarya Rai ( not even a real achievement), we didn’t have much more than Aryabhatta, Chanakya, Varahmira (those certainly are real achievements) etc.

We claim to command 1/3^rd of world’s GDP till 1700 (more or less).  What happens when a country’s citizen have so much money? They usually try to find new avenues to employ that money and that paves the way for innovation and invention. Nation and citizen thrives on those innovation and inventions and money keep getting multiply. But did that happen in India? I could hardly find mention of flourishing trade (its negligible compare to other nation, and mostly fictional rather than solid proof as we have in case of other civilisations). If that was the case India would have been different in 1757, when East India Company finally consolidated its presence in India.

A near closed economy with hardly and research and development, where did all the money actually go? Were we rich or prosperous? There are significant differences between those.  A prosperous nation can boast of prosperity and industrious citizen with ample activities going on in its economy. On the other hand a rich nation can have all the money with large section of its masses keep facing misery and poverty, as happening in modern gulf countries. And that is what the gist of social and economic life of last 1500 years in the history of India.

Our present lethargy is product of past 1500 years of near insomnia. I am proud of tolerant culture of India that made it receptive to different ideas, cultures, religions and people. But that receptiveness has also infused letharginess into our DNA that made us indifferent to happening around us. We readily yielded power to one elite section and kept ourselves busy in finding minimum sustenance for living. All riches went to rulers and all misery to ruled. That has been story of past 2000 years and it is still going on. The dazzling wealth that India has boasted did not belong to ordinary Indian like us but to the handful of ruling elite. That’s the reason we never could become inventive country despite of having enormous wealth. Ordinary Indians were busy in arranging basic sustenance for life. There is not much difference in ancient India and China but what small differences were there that made China a nation while India a consortium of fiefdom. I am not saying everything was wrong, I don’t even know if that’s true but one thing I can be sure of that something was wrong that made us to subjugate for hundreds of year despite having all the wealth and power.

My purpose here is not to belie or belittle India’s past. My purpose is to seek every question to cover 360 degree view of our history instead of just one sided view. We are not a mediocre nation and string tied to our history would not let us cross the line of mediocrity. History is like nostalgia that is good to cherish but could ruin us if we don’t let it go. As a nation we are still underachiever, we are performing below our potential; we have miles to cover before becoming a nation of achievers. We are here to create history for future generation not to submerge in deep and unknown water of our history.   

Inheritance

I was compelled to express my feeling, as I have been seeing the political bickering and mudslinging over our struggle to independence, where one party claim to inherit it all while other show no hesitation in discrediting its leader with all the venom it could muster. 

Following extract has been taken from a recent article (“History, battleground for politic” ) in The Hindu by Mr. Digvijaya Singh - “The problem with the RSS-BJP combine and their followers is that they don’t have any names worth mentioning among their leaders who might have contributed to the freedom struggle. That is probably the reason why they have been trying to appropriate the legacy of Gandhi, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and Sardar Patel among others."

Are our political leaders so ignorant that they can wilfully pass such comments? How can any Indian try to appropriate something which is rightfully his/hers by birth right? 
We have been hearing for so long in different rallies, interviews and conferences where Congress proudly claims to be a party that took us through the longs years of struggle for independence and boastfully displays its inheritance over legacy of our forefathers. Other parties accept this and try to discredit congress by accepting theory of “safety valve” or by discrediting action of its leaders like Nehru. But how true the claims of Congress and how wrong are other parties in adopting such approach? 

Before independence the Indian National Congress was not just a party, it was a movement that included within its fold, individuals and groups which subscribed to widely divergent political and ideological perspectives. Communists, socialists and nationalists worked within or along with Congress to achieve the dream of independence. The war of independence in form of movement named Congress was waged by Indians for every Indian to achieve collective goal of peace and prosperity.  And after the independence each and every Indian national either it’s an individual, organisation or party have rightfully inherited the legacy of our forefather. 

After the independence when our forefather dreamed of multi party democracy in India and Congress decided to be one of the party in that system, from that moment it ceased to be a movement. From that moment it was just a party, which was certainly not equivalent to the INC before 26th January 1950, when India became a republic. Hence any claim of Congress that any party in India doesn’t have any names worth mentioning among their leaders who might have contributed to the freedom struggle is ridiculous. Gandhi, Nehru, Netaji, Patel belongs to all of us and every party has rightful claim on them. Can you deride AAP, which was established in 2012 and whose leaders weren’t even born at the time of independence, for not having any worthy leaders who fought for country’s independence? Or Congress will have right to flog them for hanging photos of Gandhi, Nehru, Patel or Subhas Chandra Bose in their office? These questions need not to be answered. 

The second issue pertain to efforts of other parties to beat Congress in its own game by discrediting its leaders like Jawahar Lal Nehru. Indians of our generation have notion of only two aspect of life – black and white and it never take any efforts for them to cover the distance between black and white. But the world is not divided between black and white and nor do any of its stories. To discard personality like Nehru ji would only confirm our short term memory where complexities of history have no place. 
I don’t want to go into length and breadth of life story of Nehru ji. But scrolling through the pages of his life would definitely corroborate his immense contribution to history of modern India. 

He brought the idea of socialism to Congress’s fold by working along with Subhas Chandra Bose. With Subhas Chandra Bose he infused the youthful energy in somewhat ageing Congress which was aptly recognised by Bapu. He was among the first who asked for goal of Purna Swaraj for India. He constantly fought for labours and peasantry and saw through many phases of struggles for India’s Independence. After independence he took the helm of India at a difficult time when equation of 1+1 needs not to be result into 2. Hence every action had unpredictable consequences and every decision, no matter how carefully planned, was like taking an unknown pill which might either heal you or poison you to the death. Don’t you think analysing those decisions now at cool air conditioned environment is a bit easier? 

My aim is not to glorify any individual here.  India’s independence was culmination of 200 years of struggle which involved many individual heroism, collective bravery and organised struggles. Long years of struggle enabled us to liberate not only from foreign rule but it was also liberation of mind that provided a base for us to build a strong democracy. Any attempt by individuals or parties to take all credit for efforts of 200 years or discredit leaders associated with such struggle should be forcefully thwarted. We can keep brooding on golden age of ancient India or we can try to savour the heroic achievement of modern India which would equip us for a much better future. Decision is yours.

Thought for Food

We might be a nation where 60% of population is below poverty level, where malnutrition is rampant or where 26% of population i.e. 310 million people still can't read or write but when it comes to political awareness we leave behind every single country in this world. Take the example of Bihar, It lacks even the basic necessity of decent life but Biharis are supposed to be one of the most politically cognizant people, they might not know what 2 + 2 yields but they know all rajnitik mapdand. 
So what is it? What is it that makes political awareness inversely proportional to the level of development in India when case is otherwise around the world? We have heard of phrase “Food for Thought” but what applies in India is “thought for food”. When chilling winter of North India strikes every sphere of common man life, hot political debate at every nook and corner of small town is what keeps people and atmosphere warm. Irony seems ubiquitous but when, as a country, have we stopped being ironic? 
When we got our independence in 1947 we had nothing but Gandhi, Nehru and Patel. Our forefather could not ensure 2 times meal for every Indian but a robust political system was established successfully. Democracy was our pride then and it is our pride now, we couldn't build anything else to be proud of. That's the reason party politics has seeped into our very central nervous system. 
We face thousands of election in our life time. Loksabha, Vidhansabha, Panchayat, Municipal, elections in our institute work place etc etc. Political awareness is the one area where we usually have a glimpse of empowerment. When I see my mom pitching for AAP and my dad for Namo, it gives me sense of hope, a hope for better India with its empowered masses. Different political parties, their politics despite of how dirty those are, they all are manifestation of this hope. Hope on which concept of India was built upon. I don't believe direct participatory democracy to be some westernized concept. It's was always there in our blood, right from Mahajanpada system to Maurya dynasty to Gupta dynasty and it will always be there. 
So let's get politicized, let's jump into Mahakumbh of Election-2014. Let's hope, lets vote J . 
Jai Bharat

On the name of God

I was watching “Lincoln” and argument of one congressman during the discussion in congress on 13th amendment drew my attention. It was something like that “We are trying create law to give equal status to those whom god has created unequal” and there was huge applaud on that statement. God has created unequal????

First question that popped up in my mind was how the heck he knows that, did god tell him that?

One quick retrospect on my life and I could see this very simple fact that how on numerous occasions I have heard such statement in my life. How many people have tried to justify their act by telling it's a natural order created by god? Natural order like position of women, black people, SC, ST etc.

“On the name of god let's kill the infidel”, “we are on holy mission to eradicate dirt from society”, “god has instructed me to carry his word to the masses”, “God has shown me the righteous path”, “God wants us to build this temple”, “God wants us to throw these sinners out”, “God has created you like that so don't forget your position” etc. What the hell have we become, and on the name of whom? Someone who resides in our imagination, some who has been planted in our consciousness in different form through different religious concept?

In our one tiny insignificant life how many acts we have actually justified on the name of god?

Of course, it is countless. We have been doing it since the ancient time.

Invasion of foreigners -concept of survival, on the name of god.

Extension of empire with countless war by dynasty such as Maurya, Gupta, Hunas, Sakas-on the name of god.

Holy war, crusades, Religious extension through war and invasion – on the name of god

Colonialism in garb of educating racial inferior people by racial superior people- on the name of god.

Racial extermination by Nazis and others – on the name of god And present, numerous wars, terrorism, communalism etc – all on the name of god.

If you just try to count wish of god you would be amazed by the caprices and contrast wishes of our gods. We the people of earth planet who try to carry wishes of god have actually no idea about what they are and what they are doing.

We are just some abominable creature who tries to justify their heinous acts by aligning it to wishes of some super natural whom we have never, seen, heard or felt. By doing this we capitulate, both in terms of taking responsibility and taking accountability. It gives us satisfaction to think that our act is not our but part of some greater design of greater good by some great power.

We are deemed to be intelligent creature and supposed to think and act by our own mind. So why pretend?

So please by the name of god stop piggy backing god to achieve your own means

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.