The Cold Heart

My heart is cold today.
The sunshine touches it not.
Even the fire outside
Fails to warm it.
It doesn't beat anymore.
Just my limbs move
Doing what others expect of me.
Am I dead?
In my heart I am.
But expectations do not
Let me rest yet.
Waiting for the day
When the expectations will wilt away
And rest for once I may.

'Holier than thou'

Most of us Indians hate our politicians. We choose them to represent us because we have no better alternative. And we believe that it is only due to the checks and balances in the Constitution that our country hasn't turned into a mental asylum with no one in charge.

So when Sharad Pawar, widely believed to be a not-so-clean politician, who is now in charge of Agriculture, gets slapped by a person suffering from mental disorders, most of us are happy in our hearts. 'He has done what we wished to do but couldn't.' is the thought that is buried in most of our hearts.

Anna Hazare just happened to say it a bit louder and clearer when he asked if Pawar had received only a slap. The condemnation that followed stating that violence is not allowed in the Constitution makes me wonder if this is the same person who had advocated public flogging of people found consuming alcoholic drinks. Now, is flogging non-violence?

The 'holier-than-thou' attitude of both the activists and the politicians make me sick. The truth is that there are clean politicians as well as dirty ones, just as there are clean and dirty activists. We tend to concentrate on politicians as they wield considerable power and are always in public view.

Even, we, the people of India, have our own vices. Our own secrets, that we hide from all. No one is really holy. Each individual is an angel and a devil to varying degrees at different times.

So asking if the Minister received just a slap, even if it was meant to be a joke, shows a lack of respect for the rules of what may be called 'good behaviour'. If the people are so annoyed with Pawar, they have the right to vote him out in the next election or file cases against him in the courts. Slapping him or making sick jokes are not the solutions.

Indian English

I had the shock of a lifetime when an Army Officer told me that in Army, officers usually speak among themselves in English and to their subordinates in Hindi. The ghost of the long dead and buried British empire has not yet let go of the Army men (and women).
Same goes for much of the Government of India.

While the English spoken by most of the Army officers was impeccable, I must say that quite a lot of us (including me) twist the language to suit our needs. So we have dates of exams that are 'preponed' rather than 'advanced'. We 'write' the exams rather than 'take' them. And we use 'ji', 'da' and similar suffixes to introduce inequality and hierarchy in an egalitarian language in which 'I' stands(?) supreme. So we use 'Gandhiji' while others know only of 'Gandhi'. We are hero-worshipping, messiah seeking, dynasty loving  sycophants, after all!

But the funniest versions of Indian English are the ones  you get when you speak to certain customer care executives. Had a chance to speak with such a person one of these days. I'm still in shock.

My dear CC execs, I don't mind your accent. We are not native speakers and speaking correct English is really a tall task. But, can't you at least speak a bit slowly and more clearly when you know that your accent is a bit difficult for others to understand? Speaking as if you have just finished two bottles of Jack Daniels is no way to show that you care for the customers of your company.

A Few Regrets

Sitting at home with nothing to do is one of my worst nightmares. And I'm going through one of them. I tried everything from reading books to listening to songs but none of them seems to work this time. Newspapers are still full of pathetic news after the great Indian 2G scam. There is no really good news anywhere. All is gloom and doom.

The TV channels seem to be repeating the movies and serials again and again and again. Anyway, I could never stand the latter. And I'm currently a law abidiing citizen who doesn't download movies and now even songs from the internet.

The Project Gutenberg sometimes acts as a relief. I have completed the Sherlock Holmes collection for the fiftieth time. Read Wodehouse's Jeeves stories at least ten times. Unfortunately I do not seem to be fascinated by any other book.

Bram Stoker's Dracula usually cheers me up. But after reading about The Twilight, I have lost all interest in vampires and werewolves. I used to love Pride and Prejudice but now it no longer excites me. Asimov's sci-fi is what I want but I cannot get. It may be available in the Public Liibrary but I feel too lazy to go there and actually get a membership. I need a Gazetted Officer's signature to get a membership. Now, how pathetic is that?

So I try to make do with the liitle collection I have of Pottekkad's travelogues (now branded as racist for his portrayal of the Africans), a book full of superstitious stories called 'Aitihyamala', Thakazhi's 'Enippadikal' and O.Henry's short story collection.

But more often than not, I'm surfing the internet, hoping to find something that would make my day - a good story, a really funny joke or a friend who has enough time to chat with me. I'm feeling incredibly lonely.

But then, it's just for a month. Then, again I will have lots to study, friends to talk to, passages to curse and exams to take.

Waiting for those days.

Meeting Friends Again

It has been a long time since I have met any of my friends from college. First it was the job at Pune and then it was the CS Mains examination. With just one month left to go, my heart is full of regret that I've been to busy to meet my friends in spite of my joblessness.

Met Joe and Ranju after a long time today. Joe has just returned from the US. So it was a truly great meeting - catching up with the news, gossipping, cracking the old 'tech' jokes and just talking about 'who is what and where'.

It almost felt like old times when we would spend endless hours talking absloute nonsense while sipping the sharjah shakes. Only we have grown a bit more serious though each of us has tried to maintain or even unconsciously maintained her childishness in spite of the lectures on the need for maturity.

Joe reached on time for the first time in her life. So Ranju will henceforth be called 'inajnar'! :P

I am left to wonder, 'How even a short stay in US can change people fundamentally with regards to punctuality!'

Movement

After the 'Arab Spring', we now have the 'Occupy' movements. India has had its 'Lok Pal' movement which looks fizzled out now. Anyway, movements in India never had long lifetimes since we gained independence. It is always difficult to create a sustained mass movement in the country. Fissions are bound to occur and factions develop.

'Occupy' movements, currently running without leaders are reactions of the societies towards imbalances created to disrupt the old equilibrium. Micro changes over the years have resulted in macrotransformation of the society in which the old middle class values are increasingly getting sidelined. The loss of power of the middle class to the upper class is a sign of society in transition. Upper class wielding power is the shortest way to chaos as they tend to use the power to protect themselves from the increasingly vehement lower classes rather than reaching a compromise with them. This causes further imbalance and chaos. I used to believe that democracy would help in avoiding this showdown but it seems that once the political class too is sold out, nothing else really matters.

The 'occupy' movements may either restore the balance in favour of the middle class or they may die out, resulting in the concentration of power in the elite. If the latter condition becomes true, it will be the beginning of the end of the world as we know it now. For, the American elite now have a say in almost all matters that affect the humanity rather than American public alone.

I'm no fan of Marx. But when you see the world rapidly moving towards his worst predictions. You can't help but notice. In fact, Marx's supporters may have actually delayed the coming of the revolution by creating awareness about workers' rights and promoting the role of the state in the economy earlier. With the capitalists warned about the problems that may be caused by the proletariat, they adopted reconciliatory measures. However, as the ownership of capital today has become depersonalised, there may be nobody around to take the real decisions soon. Shareholders being amorphous entities and profit being the only concern, managers are bound to make decisions that are good for their companies but bad for the humanity. Same goes with political parties. With each party appealing only to ideologically polarised groups, the independents have no choice but to adopt an ideology that is closest to their ideas - though they may personally be deadly against many of the party programmes. Thus politics too becomes an insensible, inhuman war without weapons that actually does no good to the majority.

When both economy and polity fail, society too might follow their footsteps. However, since society is composed of much more than economic and political relations, there is a chance that it may react to restore the equilibrium. The intensity of the reaction will depend on the prevalence and strength of non-economic and non-political relations in the society and their orientation towards the change.

For example, in the Arab Spring, the social networking sites increased the number of the non-economic, non-political relations; these were in general, negatively orientd towards the power centres. However, in India, not only are the political and economic relations more prevalent and stronger than NPNE relations, the orientation of the NPNE relations is itself ambiguous.

The West, unlike most of us in the East characterise it, is not a homogeneous entity. Each nation has a culture specific to itself. Hence, whether the 'Occupy' movements will be successful or not is a question that cannot be answered offhand. However, it can be predicted that political parties will try to co-opt these movements, leading to the alienation of many. Most of the objectives of these movements will not be fulfilled. And none of them is going to result in a revolution of the type any of the Arab Spring nations witnessed.

Never underestimate the power of democracy and capitalism to strike back.

Fatalism

The belief means that our lives are predetermined and that no matter what we do, the results have already been decided. So you need not bother about the test tomorrow - if it is destined, you will do well no matter what proportion of the syllabus you actually manage to cover. And vice versa.

Once upon a time, I believed that I could decide what I wanted to do with my life. Now, years later, I find that life is not as simple as that. There are always the factors that you tend to ignore that ruin it at the end. Earlier, those factors used to work for me. For the past decade, my efforts and those factors have clearly been out of phase. I guess most of the humans share my condition too.

That doesn't mean that I'm a fatalist. If I were, I would have been dead by now. For example, if while crossing the road, I decide not to check whether there is any vehicle approaching from either side, you know where I would end up at. Pure fatalism is pure lunacy.

Fatalism arises out of human incapability to account for all the factors that may affect the outcome. Cruelly, the existence of many of the factors is not revealed until the outcome goes against expectations. And we cannot clearly control many factors which may lead to an adverse oucome. As Murphy's law says: If anything can go wrong, it will. And the famous 'engineer's corollary': Even if it can't go wrong, it will. These are simple, heartfelt admissions of the fact that human beings cannot control the increase in entropy of any system for infinite time. Machines fail, screens freeze, empires crumble, we die.

But that doesn't mean that we should stop. True, most of us are sick of our lives. We suck at our jobs, nobody likes us at work, we are clueless in classes and in general, human life is a continuous agony from birth to death with fleeting moments of joy in between. Yet, we have achieved much and may achieve a lot more if we continue, even if cynically, at perfecting what we see around us. Or maybe even creating something new altogether.

After all, the concept of luck was created to account for incomplete information regarding the problem under consideration. Perfect information may not be feasible or even possible, but what is wrong in trying to find out?

Another Morning

Sometimes it is difficult to wake up in the morning when you know that you have nothing meaningful to do the entire day. You get a bit more down when you see people around you running, going about their own lives. We are jealous of others, no matter what they think about themselves. And we defend ourselves at times too, magnifying the boons of our and the the banes of their lives.

Having a lot of time in my hands leads me to ponder over one of the most profound questions man has been trying to find an answer to - why do I exist? Of course, religions have tried to answer this question for many, but there is always a silent general consensus that nobody actually knows the answer. Philosophical discussion with oneself, being the most entertaining method to kill time without using any other resource than your time, has been popular among homo sapiens since the beginning of the species. Everyone tries to find the answer in his/her own way.

And as Marx said, the ideas of the ruling become the ruling ideas. So, in general, we calculate the meaningfulness of the life of a person by his contribution to the market. There have been times when spiritual contribution was the one that mattered - that was when religion controlled man. It may seem foolish now but a great number of man-hours and intellectual capital have gone into elucidating the exact structure of heaven and hell and the various places in between that today we mock at. And tomorrow, our children may   mock us for running after bits of paper and electrical signals.

We may or may not believe in our meaningfulness; we may or may not follow the trends and fads of today; those trends and fads may or may not last. Who knows what lies beyond? I cannot say even about today. Or even the next moment. Life is unpredictable. Live it.

Loss and Gain

You never know the worth of anything until you have lost it. Had a chance to go to the place I was born and brought up for my cousin's wedding. The love and affection we received from there made me re-evaluate the kind of life I am leading - far away from most of the people who really know me and whom I know well too.

By the time you pick up some friends and contacts and begin to take root, you find again that it is time to move. And then you leave, leaving behind memories that gradually fade into dull images, occasionally refreshed when you go visiting them - for real, or now virtually, on FB or other networking sites. But mostly it is 'out of sight, out of mind'.

Of course, time smoothens out the rough edges. You tend to forget the little fights and grudges seem to pointless when you are so far away. What remains are sweet memories that smell of roses; forgotten garbage doesn't stink. 

So back we are to the city, where our days are ruled by the digital clocks  and watches, where our time is at least as precious as money and where anonymity is the norm. I do not know my neighbours. Why get to know them when I know they will be gone by next week? Peripheral attachments are the least painful ones when being removed.

Of course, we love the anonymity. It gives us freedom to do what we want without having people around us worrying themselves to death about our 'deviant behaviour'. It makes us all instrumentalists, rational men and women who choose their goals and means rationally rather than emotionally.

And as the politician from Britain said, Gandhi was wrong about villages. The future of this country is in its towns and cities. How much ever you romanticise it, there is not much charm in living in a rural area that kills freedom of thought and action in the name of culture and tradition.

Still water stinks in the long run.

Some things change, some do not.

Having listened to absolutely lame jokes about memory loss and numerical illiteracy by from the Home Minister, we are forced to redefine the meaning of 'Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, it did'.

US Govt's IQ went up finally. They have realised in the end that no matter what you do, how muchever you give, Pakistani army will nourish the terrorists it thinks are good and kill the ones it thinks are bad. 'It', of course refers to the top brass of Pak army and no one else. So better save the money in these hard times.

Palestinians are trying to get their state recognised in the UN General Assembly. Of course, Israel will find some way to thwart it. The rest of the world can just wonder at how such a small country that is barely visible on my mini-globe dictates terms to the whole world. Amazing. Stunning. Moral: Never judge anyone/anything by his/her/its size.

Enjoying a week of peace without fasts and blasts and diesel price hikes in the country. I understand that Congress has no intention of returning to power in the next general election. Or it already has some news that BJP is going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Or that BJP will lose the election by D-L method. Like our cricket team. It obviously loses the games it plays badly in. But even if it puts up a winning show, rain and D-L do them in.

I am not going to learn the name of the Japanese PM until the day of examination. It is a futile, pointless exercise to learn a difficult name and then to unlearn it when the next one takes charge, even before the year finishes.

It seems EU and Germany have got themselves addicted to 'economic cliffhanging' like the Republicans. The IMF report on global economy of the year is sure gonna read like a best-selling, nail-biting, on-the-edge-of-your-seat, nightmarish thriller. However, movies and books do end.

The climate here is absolutely horrible. I sometimes feel I'm being microwaved. And whenever I read about morons denying climate change, I am reminded about my hobby in seventh standard - I would draw hundreds and thousands of triangles and measure their internal angles in the hope that at least for one of them, the sum of the angles wouldn't be 180 degrees. No, I was a perfectly normal and happy child.

Sometimes I just wonder why our government makes unimplementable laws. After a lot of thinking, I find that it may be doing so, so that the public 'servants' may find their work 'intellectually stimulating' (and financially rewarding).

While reading Indian history, I am just shocked to find how little the government has changed even after independence. We even continue to have the tax on salt that Gandhi protested against in his Dandi march. Not to say of corruption, police excesses, government indiffernce, etc.

So much for our tryst with destiny. I'm feeling miserable.

Absurdities

The proposed Women's Code Bill in God's Own Country seeks to punish parents with more than two children and people/institutions promoting such families with a fine or a prison term. The Bill would have made sense in any other state in India but never in Kerala. The state will be facing the problem of declining, ageing population soon.

A good number of American politicians and elected representatives do not agree with the general scientific view on climate change or evolution. This in a country that is (or was?) at the frontier of all scientific and technological development in the past few decades. Sorry to rub it in, but is moronism the new religion in the U.S?

Japan, very famous for its law abiding, orderly population, also has very corrupt politicians.

ISI claims to be fighting terror. (Give me a break!)

Silvio Berlusconi continues to be the PM of Italy which has a predominantly Roman Catholic population. Taking the spirit of forgiveness to new heights!

CBI claims to be an independent agency. (I'd rather believe that sun rises in the west.)

TRAI believes limiting the max. no. of smses a person can send to 100/day will help stop both spamming and terrorist activities. [Yeah! ;)]

Saudi Arabian women can vote and contest in elections, but can't drive.

life and laziness

The fan is on. Books lie on my table, on my bed, on my chair, everywhere. It is a long time since I felt serious enough to read those. The exam approches nearer every second, but I don't have the heart to read all those books.

Life seems empty most of the time. It seems to be an eternal wait for some excitement. Yawns succeed yawns, tv shows no longer make me laugh or cry or even smile. I just go on living like dead wood. Is this life?

The things I want to buy never reach the stores. Silly mistakes are made all the time. I live as if I'm some kind of addict when I am not. I wonder how I would be if I were actually addicted to something.
Even depressions add beauty to life. A soft, sad touch or may be evn the harsh, violent tone. Not denying that joy is the most beautiful colour of all. Yet things of beauty are rare in the world.

What do you call a life without emotions? Where you get to know that another week of your precious life has gone by when your mother drags you to the Mass on Sunday mornings? When you fail to distinguish between mornings and afternoons and midnights? When you feel that your life is becoming dry in spite of the fact that you are young and optimistic?

I'd like to go on a tour. Or read a wonderful book. Or take a walk to the beach. To see the golden sunset. The roaring waves. To feel the angry, blowing wind. To live again.

And you still wonder if I'm lazy?

ApologiesApologies

The biggest problems with the government service are the Official Secrets Act and the Civil Service (Conduct) Rules. A civil servant cannot criticise the government and its policies, however rotten they may be. For me, criticism is as natural as breathing. And three months in a highly secretive establishment was enough to make me paranoid about the stuff I write. Hence the long break. Like Holmes said, everything related to my previous job has been completely washed off my brain. So no need to worry now.

We will start by roasting the Republicans in the U.S. because right now, they are the worst idiots in the universe, bar none. (How I wish I could use stronger language!) Their presidential candidates are global-warming-denying, bible-thumping fools who would take the world down with them if any one of them got elected. Not that I am an Obama fan. I'm tired of his showmanship as much as anyone. But at least he sounds like he has got a modicum of grey matter in his head though it is of not much use these days.

I was watching in horror as the Republicans and the Democrats made a cliffhanger of a simple decision of raising the debt limit. Whatever anyone else says, S&P was right in downgrading the U.S. rating. Somebody ought to give them a shock treatment at times.

With the unemployment rate standing still and the announcements of downsizing by the finance sector firms, we are nearing the border of another recession. And our biggest problem is that this world has no one to really look up to.

In U.S., Barry is more concerned about his re-election than saving the world economy, the heads of the Wall Street still believe that the world hasn't moved on from 'Greed is good' days of Gecko, intelligent and sensible Republicans are an extinct breed, Dems are useless and Main Street is helpless.

In EU, the French are mired in controversies, the Germans can never be convinced to spend enough, the Italians and the PIIGS....(don't know how many more countries can a malformed animal name accommodate) countrymen need money to pay their bills thanks to unbelievable levels of spending, dropping efficiency and militant trade unionism.

And the BRICS haven't arrived yet, whatever the economists may say about the Chinese dragon and the Indian back office.

In our own country, we have got a double digit inflation level, a government which seems to be still afraid of reforms in spite of a general support for it on top of a good parliamentary majority and an opposition which has only one panacea for, one opinion on, each and every problem affecting this country: 'We want the PM to resign'.

We had a meaningless, fruitless fast-cum-media-cum-middle-class-campaign in the past few weeks which promised to cure the country of all ills but ended with a defeat-masked-as-unconditional-victory. Right now, we have the C-company taking on the A-company. Hell, if half the people who supported the campaign stopped giving or taking bribes, corruption will be soon buried. Now that the jingoistic farce has ended, I hope people will go back to their old ways. Otherwise, we may lose out on our way to become the most corrupt country in the word.

The Sports bill, a sensible bill that has come out of the sports ministry will never see the Legislature. And nothing will happen to the governments in Delhi, Gujrat, Karnataka or any other state. We always fight for abstract principles and theoretical institutions. We will figh or fast till our death for them. Reforming the existing institutions or even supporting the people trying to do so is so passe. Where is the groundswelling support for Hegde or the Gujrat Lokayukta or even the Sports bill?

This world is doomed.

The Physics of GoI

Today I overheard a wiseguy cracking jokes about the GoI, inspired by Physics. I am sharing them with you.

Newton's laws:
1. GoI, if at rest, remains at rest and if in motion, tends to go into rest unless a force is applied to keep it in motion.
2. The acceleration (if at all produced) will be directly proportional to the public support or the influence of the person applying the force, in relation to the department that has to move.
3. Every (public) reaction may be followed by an opposite action by the government which will, however, never be equal to the 'reaction'. It will always be either less or much more than the public reaction; i.e., public will never get what it wants. Also, action will always FOLLOW the reaction.

Relativity applied to GoI:
A person who has to get his file cleared at an office and the official handling his file will have totally different perceptions about the concept of 'time'. The difference will however depend on the 'connections' of the former.

Moore's law in GoI:
The number of files to be cleared from a table gets doubled every 18 months. This figure is independent of the use of technology or personnel.

Physicists worry about the number of dimensions the universe has got, its present and its future. For us, the biggest mystery is how GoI finally gets what it wants.

Never Trust

Never trust the smiling faces.
They hide what lie beneath.
For smiles are bought and sold today.

Never trust the tears you see.
They are never truthful these days.
For glycereine is cheap to buy.

Never trust anyone's love.
Love doesn't exist anymore.
For this is the age of lust and dust.

Never trust yourself today.
Nor the words of the wise
For all life is folly, and all men fools.

Accountability

'Accountability' is one of the most commonly used words in relation to government and governance all over the world today. From the U.S. to Afghanistan, citizens are not satisfied with their governments on account of this one factor: an apparent lack of accountability among persons in power.

With the state assuming more responsibilities replacing the traditional agencies, it has assumed more power too, in order to 'increase efficiency'. All projects are projected to be more or less efficient in the beginning. Then, slowly, they either become inefficient or the problems that were swept under the carpet in the earlier phases slowly come out. In the first case, the people in charge are to be punished. But what happens in the latter case? The current office-holders are held to be accountable for the actions of their predecessors. And the real mischief-makers continue to enjoy their 'efficient' status. The double standards in the treatment meted out to their contemporary officers tend to silence the honest people who want to blow the whistle about their departments.

They are left in a dilemma: to whom are they accountable? To their organisation, to their profession, to the taxpayer or to their conscience. Mind you, in real life, all may have different requirements. And the taxpayer is invisible and has no apparent means of checking what is happening. Blowing the whistle may disrupt the functioning of the organisation which may be trying to return to accountability after a long time of 'making up the stats'. And acting according to your conscience may force one to quit his/her job at a time when s/he desperately needs it. The problem that seems to haunt one person may appear silly to others.

It is very much like the case of a single working mother. By her very nature, she would like to spend her time with the child. But to ensure its survival and future prospects, she has to work. One part of her dies everyday.

The same is the case with an honest worker. The conflict between the various accountabilities may make them look unaccountable. But, in truth, they are as honest as everyone else.

Still, it would be better to make the taxpayer your first priority. Look at what happened in Japan. Someone in the government might have surely known about the danger of having the plant on the fault. But hey, 'an earthquake of 9.0 magnitude is improbable' and it was so till it occurred. Even the smallest mistakes we commit today, knowingly or unknowingly, might have wider ramifications in the future. The only safeguard we can have is to keep the information as open as possible and fix the accountability precisely where it should be.

We cannot and we should not blame people totally innocent of a crime their predecessors had committed. That takes initiative out of the system. And we need to make the invisible taxpayer more visible. Right to information, citizens' charter and social audits are welcome steps but the objective will be achieved only when the organisations themselves provide the information to the public rather than waiting for formal requests.
In this case, the objective and the means to achieve it are the same.

Osama's Death and Indian Silence

A significant majority of the people all around the world rejoiced as the U.S. SEALs killed Osama at his secret residence in Abbottabad in Pakistan. Indians were especially relieved as the episode led to a confirmation of the Indian stand that Pakistan can never be a trusted ally in the 'war against terror' as elements in the Pakistani security establishment continue to support terror groups of varied shades in order to further their interests in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

Their continued support of the Haqqani group in Afghanistan and LeT and other related groups in Pakistan defies the Bushian logic of 'You're with us or you're with them'. The fact is, the identification of these terror groups with Islam and the overwhelming spread of anti-U.S. and anti-India sentiments in Pakistan makes it difficult for any government to do anything against the terrorists even if its leaders genuinely want to do something. Given the close ties between the defence forces and the terror groups which were formed, nurtured and strengthened over the past decades, winning the war against terror in Pakistan seems impossible. That a good number of Pakistanis consider Osama to be a martyr and a that a majority felt sad about the killing came as no surprise to the people of India.

Still, Osama's death creates more threats to India. The increased incidence of terror attacks on Pakistani military installations show that the terror groups see the Pak defence forces as 'betrayers' who sold Osama to the U.S. in return for aid. The ease with which these terrorist groups entered and attacked these installations raises the question of the safety of the nuclear weapons in that country. In the current scenario, it is almost difficult to believe that Pakistan will be able to prevent the terrorists from gaining access to its nuclear arsenal if the latter make a determined attempt to do so.

The attacks also show that the grip of the ISI and Pak army on these terror groups is loosening. The pattern in which targets have been selcted and the manner in which the attacks have been carried out seem to proclaim a growing animosity towards the 'remote control owners' in the Pak defence forces. This is a dangerous trend as mad dogs on a leash are 'safer' than the ones which do not have a leash. Pak army used to control these groups to further their interests and nothing much else. Now that the control is almost gone, the future seems more terrifying than the past.

With the death of Osama and the seemingly unending attacks on the security apparatus, the rank and file of the army must be feeling heavily demoralised. The regard for the army in the country too might now be at an all-time-low. This might lead its leaders to opt for an easy way to boost morale - attack India. The subdued reactions of Indian leaders to the events in Pakistan are not due to lack of patriotism - they have been carefully worded so as not to push the Pak leadership over the brink. Pakistan does not have much to lose now - its economy is in tatters, the credibility of its defence forces is diminished and its claim to territorial sovereignity is nothing more than a joke now thanks to the publicity given to the drone attacks and the Swat valley incident. That a government would, even if temporarily, allow an extremist group with no credible popular mandate to govern its territory is frightening. It showed how weak the Pakistani government is. The time it took to finally decide to strike back makes us wonder how prepared Pakistan is to counter an extremist takeover of the entire country or even a strategic portion of it.

Now that Osama's death has prompted the terrorist groups in Pakistan to strike back against their masters, India needs to be more worried than ever. Grand statements against the official rulers of Pakistan, which our opposition parties demand, may satisfy the home audience. But the price we may have to pay for them makes it an easy decision to take.

A Malabar Monkey in a Military Mess

I have always hated spoons and forks and knives - even when not eating with them. Even when I try to cook, I try not to use them. Anything with a handle repels me. In restaurants, when the waiters would place spoons alongside dishes for eating, I would move them as far from my dish as possible. I was addicted to eating with fingers - the traditional Indian way of eating. The only thing I ate with a spoon was the ice cream.

All that has changed since I reached Poone. The mess here encourages eating with forks, knives and spoons. And the word 'encourages' means the same thing as in 'China 'encourages' the single child policy.' At first I resisted, continuing to eat with my fingers as long as dad was around. But as soon as dad went back, my courage ditched me and I started to eat with those steel contraptions.

I have to thank the internet for saving me from starvation. I did not have a clue about the rules governing these 'weapons of destruction'. So sought refuge in Google and lo and behold! I was turning into a master of the theoretical aspects of both the continental and the American style.

But theory is a bit different from practice. Fork and spoon are used here more often than fork and knife. And cutting the roti with a spoon can lead to awkward situations. So improvisation became necessary. Ditto with chicken curry. Thus, eating, for me, has become a 'learning exercise' than a process to enjoy the food!

I would not say that I have reached the 'expert' level in the game of these contraptions. I still keep making mistakes. But I hope I have moved into 'Medium' from 'Easy'.

The biggest achievement would be to eat puttu made of punja rice with a fork and a knife. That would be the 'expert' level.

An Apology

What I really want to write now is a scathing article on the ineptness of the government which did not even bother to double-check the names in the 'Most wanted' list given to Pakistan, which hoped to arrest Kim Davy in Denmark with an expired warrant and other innumerable sins of omission and commission - some celebrated by the media and others buried deep in the files which will never be opened again.
The thing is, it is pointless to complain. Indian government is hopelessly inept these days in many areas that citizens expect it to be efficient. The government on the other hand, consider these to be the areas that require least attention.

Everyone knows what Pakistan will do with our 'Most wanted' list, even if it was correct - they will have a good laugh over the Indian government which 'expects' it to hand over Dawood Ibrahim and punish the 26/11 perpetrators. So both the GoI and the GoP know that the handing over of the list is a mere exercise to reassure the Indian citizens that the government exists. It does not matter which names are on the list. Nobody from the government on either side bothers to read it. But only this time the media played the spoilsport.

About Kim Davy. What happens after India arrests him? We will house him in a five-star jail, conduct a long trial, then watch as he appeals to the HC and then to the SC with 'breaking news' about the 'shocking revelations' about 'those in power'. And the great Indian middle class will add a few extra layers of skin and become more dumb and more deaf as the tamasha progresses. Which leads me to believe that CBI's intention might habe been more altruistic than we give it credit for. After all, the government is trying to reduce deficit by committing even the suicidal act of increasing petrol prices by unheard-of amounts though MPs who do not even attend the Parliament regularly get paid obscene amounts just because they are 'HMSs' (his/her master's servants). So the CBI was actually doing the taxpayer a favour by not creating another 'Kasabish' situation. But, what were these idiots in the media thinking of? Don't they think that we have to make up for the loss of two lakh crore rupees?
The GoI is not inept, nor is it stupid. In a world where economists are given a free hand, you can always expect rotting foodgrains and malnourished people because that makes 'economic sense', obscenely low limit for the poverty line because a government that can spend lakhs on a few rolls of toilet paper cannot 'afford' to acknowledge the actual level of poverty in the country if it has to control its deficit. When fiscal deficit becomes more important than government deficit, and now, even moral deficit, what hope can the citizens have?
India's tryst with destiny began at midnight and unfortunately, a majority have still not had a glimpse of the sun that is now surely rising. Confined to the darkness by insurmountable barriers of corruption, illiteracy, nepotism and misgovernance, the majority still find life to be a struggle for existence.

And I am a hippocrat too,blogging about the struggling millions from an aiconditioned room from a gadget those people may never even dream of owning.

Notes

Pakistan and China are celebrating 60 years of friendship in 2011. After the Abottabad fiasco, when the Pakistani establishment found itself cornered and our Army chief went about making 'insensitive' remarks, China was the only country that stood by it. And China probably is the only country that finds support both among the general populace as well as the corridors of power -political and military - in Pakistan.

It is a match made in heaven - a common rival (India), heavy arms trade and investment ties - and free, unrestrained rhetoric whenever the other one is in trouble. India - Russia, Pakistan - China : these countries have ties which are remnants of the era of Cold War, not much trade to support them except for arms trade and are still going strong more due to nostalgia and time-tested trust rather than the money-denominated, economy-and-resource-dominated relationships of today. Which is good, for it is difficult to find such strong relationships between countries without a common ethnic origin or language or religion. In fact, in Asia, common origin (India-Pakistan), language or religion(some countries in the Middle East) never seem to be factors that foster unity. It is the rule of the attraction of the opposite poles that seem to work in the largest continent of planet earth. Look at it - Pakistan, an Islamic republic with an Urdu-speaking population and a free, capitalist economy has its strongest ally in China, a Communist nation of Mandarin speaking 'kafirs'. Geography decides your destiny and allies in Asia. Palmistry in humans gets scaled to boundary-line reading for nations. And unsurprisingly, the latter is more scientific and accurate.

Allies of China make an interesting study. Of course, all countries make allies to maximise their interests - strategic or economic, but China stands out because its most trustworthy allies are 'failed states' or boundary-line cases. China does not have an ally stronger than itself or even one that comes close to matching it. The psychology behind the idea of the 'celestial kingdom' still seems to be alive in the land of the dragons.

Pakistan is a country that could have become a developed country by now if its military-political-executive leadership were not so preoccupied with Kashmir and India. A nation of fertile fields and beautiful valleys, home to ancient universities and breathtaking mountains . But, alas, that was not to be! This is the fate of the nations who put their military in command. Granted, armymen may be more patriotic, but borrowing from Pareto, the ruling elite ought to have both foxes and lions in it. Running a country is more than putting up a show as the politicians in Pakistan are doing now. Pasha may speak of rehearsals, but a country which cannot protect its own military establishments from being attacked by militants, doesn't sound like a foe to be scared of. In fact, I bet that the Indian security agencies are more worried about the militant groups over which ISI has no control and the rogue elements in the Pakistani army than the actual strength of its real defence forces.
While dealing with Pakistan, India always faces a dilemma. Everyone knows that it is the army which calls the shots in Pakistan. Yet our civilian leaders can only to the civilan leaders there. Which really is a futile exercise in a country where coups are as common as regular monsoon is in India - you cannot be sure it will come but there is always a probabilty that it will.
The only way that Pakistan can redeem itself is by curbing the reach of its army and electing to power a strong, clean, responsive and responsible democratic government. Which seems improbable at the moment. Still, we can hope. Bihar did it. Will Pakistan follow?

Election results in Kerala

Today the Kerala election results came out. The whole state is stunned at the 'photo finish' result, with the latest update being a 72-68 split of the 140-member state legislative assembly. The other three states have given solid mandates to the winners but Kerala seems to be in two minds.

The thing is, the Left rule was not as bad as the UDF made it out to be. The past rule was an out-and-out welfare regime, bordering on Fabian socialism. In a society as unequal as Kerala(I know this is a surprising fact, but our Gini index is among the highest in India.), only a welfare state can help people belonging to the lower sections in meeting their expenses on basic needs like food, education and healthcare. The Left has had this solid base which has stood with it for the past many decaded even as a good number of its members moved on to join the upper sections of the society. The loyalty to the Left front ensures it of a certain number of votes come what may.

Similarly, the UDF has a good following among the so-called general category sections - Nairs, Christians and thanks to the IUML, among Muslims too. Though the Kunjalikkutty issue that rose to prominence in the month just before the elction alienated many of the pro-UDF voters from it, the whole manner in which the media portrayed it consolidated the Muslim vote in north Kerala. This 'sympathy vote' led to a marked but expected improvement in the performance of IUML though the remaining allies in the UDF had to pay the price for what a good number of voters believed to be a case of 'protecting the powerful wrongdoer'. So the anti-incumbency factor did not work much in favour of the UDF. The very thought of having a person facing such serious allegations as a minister may have repelled a good number of voters who might have voted against the Left.

The manner in which the leadership of the UDF handled the two rupee per kilogram of rice scheme left much to be desired. The petty squabbles among the allies for seats, the corruption scandals at the Centre and the excessive attention bestowed on religious and communal leadership by the UDF leave much to be desired. It ought to revamp its PR machinery and understand that Kerala is in the process of moving on from the trend of voting on caste/communal lines to a more individualistic and instrumentalist voting pattern.

The LDF could have easily won this election if it had borne a semblance to a coherent government. It seemed in quite a number of instances that he left hand did not know what the right hand was doing. It was like a performance of Kathakali with a background of hiphop Bollywood music - a reign marred by easily avoidable confusion. Its welfare schemes were good and helped people survive in spite of the soaring levels of inflation but it would have been better if it had done a bit for the most populous and the most powerful class of Kerala - the middle class. A bit of support for setting up of new private industries in the state and at least a show of willingness to start the SmartCity project would have stood it in good stead. Alas, that was not to be.

BJP again failed to open its account in Kerala. This failure was very predictable too. Thanks to the riots in Gujrat and in Orissa, it is going to be very difficult for the BJP to get the minority vote - which accounts for 43 per cent of the total population of the state. Add the ballpark figure of the minimum 30 percent staunch Left supporters. So, about three-fourths of the population automatically exclude the party when it comes to the elections. And in a state where elections are traditionally neck-and-neck races, the party has virtually no chance of winning an election. Add factionalism and ego clashes to that and you will find that the lotus may never bloom in Kerala.

The society in Kerala is divided on caste, class and party lines, sometimes overlapping, sometimes conflicting. This is reflected in the elections too. The role played by factors like political polarisation, group loyalties and media activism make Kerala elections both predictably unpredictable and unpredictably predictable. That is the essence of politics in Kerala.

Life is a play of fools

Life is a play of fools. And it is becoming more so. Our emotions and characters are increasingly being limited to what the FB and the Gmail allow us to type using the characters. Only one single standard happy smiley. No variations. Wouldn't this affect our normal interactions too? Man is an animal with an infinite number of emotions and states of mind. And the computers are making our expressions 'limited'.

How do you express the emotion when the first raindrops after a long hot summer land on you as you are going to an important meeting? Annoyed but still enjoying the sweet smell of earth as it regains its ability to breathe life back into the dormant, forgotten seeds hidden in its womb?

Or when you hear a sweet slow melody quite accidentally when you were tired beyond imagination? A melody so sweet that you leave the work for the report to be submitted to your boss the next day and just lie down, listening to it, savouring every note?

The joy when you read a beautiful poem, the happiness when the first dish you cook alone comes out fine, the taste of fresh mango juice - can we express these in words? If you can, you are either a genius or a total moron.
Why let characters limit our emotions? Life is much more than symbols. It is more about the memories, the mistakes, the little joys and the laughs, the cries and the blushes than about colons, semicolons and brackets. So, instead of reading this, go out and get a life!

Mind, Language and Ideas

'I think, therefore I am.', said Descartes, proving the existence of his mind to himself. How do we know that others have minds too? That their minds are as 'good' as ours? Do the animals have minds too? Does a newborn baby have a mind?

Descartes could prove to himself that he existed as he was aware of the concepts of 'thought' and 'existence'. He had a language to express it. We infer that animals have no mind as they are unaware of abstract concepts and have, at best, very limited linguistic skills. In fact, the progress the human race has made till date is solely based on its ability to grasp abstract concepts and communicate them to others. A newborn baby, with no concepts and no language, has no mind. Its mind develops after it is born. It is indeed bewildering to think of the fact that the progress of a society can be retarded, limited or accelerated by the nature of the language it uses. The freer a language is to incorporate new words and new expressions, the more exposed will its speakers be to new ideas. And it is these ideas that take us forward or backward. The colloquial language at any point of time reflects the past and the present of a society and determines its future to a great extent.
It is said that Homo sapiens is the only species that is aware of the fact that the individual members have to die. As Keynes so aptly put it, 'In the long run, we are all dead.' What happens to the mind after death? Is the religious concept of soul different from the concept of mind? If so, why do religions seek to punish the soul for the acts directed by the mind?

If the existence of mind depends on the brain being alive, mind is reduced firstly to a collection of thoughts and memories and finally to currents of electrons making and breaking chemical bonds on the way. How weird it is to think of the grand ideas of liberty, justice and equality as the result of the circulation of sodium and potassium ions in a specific manner!

A return journey

And so began the journey back from Delhi. After a short wait at the Nizamuddin railway station, the Rajdhani gently chugged into the station. We got in.

It was the first time I was travelling by a train in north India. Other than what I have read in the textbooks and seen on the TV, north India is as much a mystery to me as Kerala must be to someone in Haryana. I will never understand the logic of the infinity of the colourful bangles in their women's hands, of the ghoonghat, of the karva chauth and their belief that everyone from the south of Maharashtra is a Madrasi.

After some time, the scene outside the window of the train becomes boring due to its sheer monotony. In May, the land looks so parched that you feel thirsty on looking at it. Roads are very few in number. And I saw more goats and buffaloes on the way than specimen belonging to the Homo sapiens.

Yet, all the land, or at least most of it was under cultivation. Long stretches of land lay before me, empty after harvesting, ready to give life to the next set of crops only if their thirst was quenched. Houses were found in clusters, not isolated and a bit far from each other as we have in Kerala.

My father made an interesting observation as we were passing through Rajasthan. The north Indians tend to cover themselves up whether in summer or winter whereas the Malayalis preferred the 'minimalist' style in summer. After some brainstorming, we blamed it on our high humidity.

Nobody seemed interested in looking at the landscape outside after the lunch. Dad went to sleep too, leaving me alone to look at how this part of the country shapes up.

I am now both proud and ashamed to say that I am from Kerala. If these states had received half as much rain as we were receiving, nobody in the world would go to sleep hungry. Yet, in the case of the spirit of equality and fraternity, we do fare better.

I saw bullock carts and tractors running side by side. Huts and palaces doted the country of the cultivated lands. Still a glimmer of the untameability of the earth was seen in the patches where bushes ruled over the land. Groups of nomadic artisans living in tents made of plastic sheets lay sleeping in the scorching sun even as this air-conditioned train carrying their brethren whizzed by. Some May day!

Money decides the temperature you live in, the clothes you wear and even the quality of the air and water you consume.

There is no wildness of nature in these parts. No wonder the women are expected to be submissive here. The reins of both of them are firmly held by the men here. Orderly but cruel. Productive but parched, broken, deformed. Not a sign of life that was not deigned and decreed by the lords. How loathsomely neat!

Yet signs of change are seen. A lone woman driving an SUV on a narrow road parallel to the train, patches of wild bushes and trees not grown under 'social forestry' give hope. Let this hope never die.

Finally

Finally I will be having a real job two weeks from now. Sounds wonderful though I have no idea what the job is about. The place is one I have no idea about. A different language, a different culture. So I'm a bit apprehensive.

After two years of staying at home, leaving your family seems quite difficult. I believe I wouldn't have felt so bad if I had got out immediately after passing out of college. Still, that was not to be.

In two years, I have learnt many things. I believe I am a bit more sensible and humble than I was. I still can't believe how foolish I was during those days. Life takes us through paths we find difficult, to make us better persons. That is the summary of my two years' experience.

Now, I have no regrets. I admit that I have made mistakes, gross errors of judgement and almost ruined my career. Still, life wouldn't have seemed as sweet as it is now but for those mistakes. Sure, the pain is unbearable when you are going through a difficult phase. But once you are through, nothing gives you a greater satisfaction than the memories of how you survived with your integrity and conscience intact.

In retrospect, I would admit that all the mistakes I had committed were good ones to make. I wouldn't have been as contented as I am today had I chosen any other path. My parents seem a bit upset that I'm going away. I'm upset too but none of it changes the fact that I'm happy with my decisions and wouldn't exchange my life for anything else.

Some time ago, I hated my life. Now I call myself stupid for shedding those unwanted tears. Then I hated the conspiracies of the universe. Life was not fair. Well, now I love the conspiracies and life is still not fair, but now it is tilted in my favour.

Strange is man, for a moment of pain can wipe out his memories of a lifetime of happiness but then again, a moment of happiness can erase the pains of a lifetime of desperation, too.

My Life, To Hell and Back, Part VI

The single room I was given isn't actually a single room in the real sense of the term. It is a big room divided into two by a partition. There is an opening to enter the room which, however, is not accessible from the main door. So, I had to pass through Roshni's room to enter mine. We could easily hear each other talking even if we couldn't see each other. And Roshni is the person who compelled me finally to start attending the evening prayers.

In our floor, we had two more such rooms - one of Nidhi, an advocate doing her LLM and Jincy, an IES aspirant. The other room was one that housed two nuns. One of the nuns and my favourite was Sister Danny, an English teacher who had come to prepare for the NET exam. She is an extraordinary human being - the stuff, as I said, the angels are made of. I didn't get to see much of the other nun as she had gone home to meet her mother who had been diagnosed of cancer. She was diagnosed in the final stage of the disease. The trials and troubles of others showed me how lucky I was. I had no problems to face, and in front of me was an opportunity that thousands aspire for, but only a few hundreds get.

However, the problem with the Mains 'opportunity' is that studying for it seems more like a backbreaking burden than a walk on a path strewn with rose petals. At least, I felt so. After 'completing' the optionals, I finally turned to GS. My strategy of learning at the time was: Read as much as you can so that you might remember something for the mains. I followed this strategy religiously. Jeevan sir asked me to get previous papers and work out the questions. After much prodding, I bought previous papers of Pub Ad but I haven't ever opened it. Not even to write my name on it. I had no time.

Ashwathi was the other person from the hostel who had cleared the prelims along with me. I finally met her when one of my classmates asked me to take a Malayalam book to her. We became good friends.

Like many other human beings, I used to eat to beat depression. Sugar intake always calmed me. I was suffering from an inferiority complex the day I had started attending the Mains class. It aggravated after the prelims result was declared. I knew I had not half the knowledge that many candidates who did not qualify had. And when I sat with them, which happened quite often, my heart would accuse me of being a fluke, a coward and a lazy bug who got lucky.

The food at the hostel thus turned out to be insufficient for me. As the exam, came nearer, I became a frequent visitor at the Spencer's in the Anna's Arcade, gorging on ice creams, chocolates, bread and butter and other unhealthy foods even as my weight began to shoot up. On top of that, mom sent me delicious fish pickle, so that even my rice consumption skyrocketed. Sometimes, I would go to the Statue hotel for fried rice and butter chicken or Arul Jyothi for Masala Dosa. A glass of orange juice and a cutlet daily became a must for me to think straight. All that was until I became friends with Nisha.

About a week before the Mains started, Nisha came to the hostel. Nisha too was taking the test with the same optionals as me. I first met her in the hostel mess. Nisha belonged to the perennially doomed group of 'socially forward but economically backward'. Luckily for her, she had got admission in Navodaya and that education and her own experience in life has made her a gem - one in a billion. Dear UPSC, if you are not taking her, you are missing out on one of the most brilliant civil servants and one of the greatest humanists ever from the country. Her words come from her life, mine are from books. Her words carry conviction, mine confusion. Yet...

To cut a long story short, talking with her made me realise that I am nothing short of a spoilt brat, that redemption is possible and that hope is the greatest gift that mankind has.

Then I took the mains, finally. Everybody in the hostel prayed for us as we took the tests. In spite of all the appeals to God, GS papers were horrible as usual. However, the subject papers showed remarkable focus on contemporary issues, which meant that you could have taken the exam with the preparation for the GS papers alone. For essay, there was really no choice as I had forgotten everything about tribals, much like the typical Indian bureaucrat. Also, I didn't know that the miserly rich Indians had suddenly become generous and started donating money to anything other than places of worship. So I had to blah-blah about India's leadership.

Finally, all the tests were over with the Sociology papers. I had written many blunders in all my papers. When I finally got out of the University College at Trivandrum, I was quite confident that I wouldn't clear.

But unexpectedly, I cleared. The interviews start on 22nd of this month. And, again, as usual, I don't know a word. Pray for me!

My Life, To Hell and Back: Part V

It took eight hours of sound sleep for the reality to sink in, even peripherally. I had to buy the textbooks, I had to get serious about Pub Ad but worst of all, I had to study GS!

In the next few days, the class got divided - those who had cleared the prelims and those who hadn't. Many went to Delhi for the Mains preparation. My parents asked me if I wanted to go to Delhi too. As I was sure that the fluke wouldn't continue, I told them not to waste their money on it. Some of my friends and relatives vociferously demanded that I be exiled. My parents, who knew me very well, politely refused.

With my parents becoming extra generous with my pocket money, I started shopping for books. Jeevan sir gave me the list of books to be studied in emergency cases like mine. Pub Ad class was lagging behind the schedule, so I decided to attend Jeevan's IAS Academy for both optionals and leave GS 'to fate'. This centre, unlike the name, consists of a couple of small rooms, one of them having tin sheets on five sides, on the terrace of one of the buildings at Thampanoor. When it rained heavily, the classes would be stopped as it was difficult to hear anything as the raindrops lashed out at the tin roof. But the classes there were excellent. I had joined midway, so I had to pay only half the fee. I photocopied the notes of the earlier classes from Aparna, whom I knew from my days at the Academy. There, my closest friends were Aparna and Anupama - both of them children of a Hindu and a Christian parent each. They taught me what it meant to be truly secular and why it was so important to be secular.

My relationship with the mighty and the powerful in the hostel changed dramatically after the 'night of the result'. Only two had qualified from the hostel. Because of that, I got a single room all to myself in the ground floor.

The story of how I got it still pains me. The next day after my result, in order to finally impress the nuns, I bought some laddus I planned to give to the warden. While I was waiting outside, a girl came and congratulated me. I became a bit boastful and told her how unexpected the result was, for I had studied for only one week for the prelims. She smiled but I felt that there was pain in her eyes. Suddenly, we were both called into the office.

I gave the warden the laddus and told her I had cleared the prelims. Next, the girl talked to her. The warden told her something about God's will being different and kind of stuff - the same stuff my mother would tell me to comfort me after the CAT '08 but I wouldn't listen. I too wanted to comfort her, tell her that she would do it the next time. Suddenly the warden asked me if I wanted a single room. In confusion by now, as I had never requested for a single room but was now being offered one, I said yes. Then the warden asked the other girl to show me the room she was vacating. I felt awkward as I followed her.

Later, I came to know that it was her fourth and hence final attempt, that she was quite confident of clearing it at the time and that she was the stuff that angels are made of. And here I was, a little devil, who bunked even the compulsory evening prayers, a brat who thought life was for mere enjoyment, displacing her from a place that I thought should rightly belong to her. Yet, I took the room and moved in with my stuff before going home one final time before the mains.

Right now, that angel is working as a volunteer in the Maoist - affected areas of Orissa. Strange paths does life take human beings through.

My Life, To Hell and Back: Part IV

In prelims, the GS paper was terrifically good for me because I had prepared for the RBI Mains exam which I finally couldn't take because it clashed with XAT. If I cleared sociology, it is only because of the method in which Jeevan sir, my sociolgy teacher took the classes, made me take the tests and encouraged me in spite of me being the laziest bug of all. Till I joined the Mains class, the only textbook I had with me was Haralamboss's book on sociology. I thought it wise not to buy any other book because it was CSAT in 2011 anyway and so there was a lot of time to buy textbooks.

Once I joined the Academy, I religiously attended the Mains classes. By now, I was reformed, though I found it difficult to study such vast amounts of data. I had to choose a second optional. I was going to go for Physics, but my course co-ordinator (wisely, in hindsight) asked me to try Public Administration. I bought Laxmikanth's book and tried reading it. Well, I hated it from the time I read the first word. I tried attending the class at Academy, but was so disinterested that it was pointless to even try. Still, I kept going. However, I didn't buy any other book for Pub Ad till the prelims result came out.

Midway through my Mains class, my sister's engineering entrance results were published. She had a rank in the 2700s, so we calculated that she would most probably end up in CompSci branch at TKM. Mom got herself transferred to Kollam and I ended up in Bethany Hostel.

Staying in a hostel was always a dream for me ever since my mother refused to buy me a Navodaya school entrance application form. She had stayed in hostels almost throughout her life and she didn't want me to suffer the same fate. But now, I was in a hostel room with four other inmates - two MBA students, Linu and Shilpa and two entrance aspirants, Sona and Pamaela. Three students from the Academy too were in the hostel - Dhanya, Meera and Lakshmi. There were many other CS aspirants too, but I knew very few. I kept to my floor and seldom ventured out. Kalamol, Priya, Asha from nearby rooms became my friends. I was the laziest of all as I was quite sure I wouldn't pass the prelims. We had fun those days - I had almost nothing to study. We watched movies, told stories and talked, bunked evening prayers and in general, lived a very carefree life. All these, while my parents thought I would be studying like hell. Jeevan sir would regularly advise me on the importance of studying. In spite of ignoring his words for a long time, I finally became tired and bought two more textbooks for Sociology. Meanwhile, Shilpa and Linu left the hostel. Aiswarya and Arathi made way into my room. I became the seniormost member in my room. Yet, the person the hostel warden trusted most in my room was Pamaela.

That was before the results came.

Result was at first, a pleasant shock for me. I was not able to access the UPSC site in my mobile phone. So I called up DJ to check the result. Finally, I came to know that I had cleared the prelims. But the biggest thing in my mind then was that I would get the ten thousand rupees fees back from the Academy. That meant enough pocket money for the next few months. The idea that I'll be taking the mains in a couple of months refused to bother me that day.

My Life, To Hell and Back: Part III

I attended the XLRI interview. My confused state of mind affected my preparation. I couldn't decide which way I wanted to go. After the interview, Jayesh asked me to fill in a booklet. It was filled with questions that would potentially lead to self discovery, if properly used. I used it, not completely honestly, because I was still hesitant to accept the truth. The emotion behind the revenge mentality is a too powerful one to overcome in one go. The pain that the wound caused was unbearable and my thoughts were just aggravating it - still, at that time, that pain gave me pleasure.

K and B interviews had only one day in between them. I attended the K interview. It went well. I bluffed well on why I wanted to do MBA. I had been warned against telling the board about my civil service plan so I kept silent about it. Then came the B interview.

Miracles have a strange way of occuring. The moment I stepped into the B campus, I decided, finally, that I did not want to do MBA for the reasons that were important to me at that point. What made me take the decision, I still do not know and neither can I attempt to explain. But the relief I felt was so blissful, I do not think it can ever be experienced again. I spoke my mind there - in the essay and at the interview. I was sure I would never convert B. It was inexplicable, but I felt really happy after a long time - almost a decade.

Results began to pour in. I had cleared ESE and K. Much against very logical reasoning by many well-wishers, I decided to drop K and join Engineering Services as per allocation. I also decided not to take the civil service preliminary examination in 2010 as I was not prepared. And my sociology notes were missing. So there was no point in taking the test. I would take it in 2011.

A week before the preliminary test, instigated by the comments of a certain cousin of mine, my parents asked me to appear for it. I was shocked beyond expression. The probability of my qualifying was near zero. I had to be a quantum mechanical particle to do it - I mean jump the quantum well. But they would listen to none of it.

My father bought me a Sociology question bank. I bought a CSR yearbook. Studied like hell for one week. I knew about the importance of going through previous years' papers but due to lack of time, I couldn't do it. Till date, the only prelims paper I have seen is the one that I attempted on the D-day.

Right after the prelims, I thought that there was a possibility that I might clear the prelims. That confidence went on a nosedive in the subsequent days, but much against my protests, my parents made me join the Mains programme at the Academy.

My Life, To Hell and Back: Part II

I took the CAT on December 5, 2009. That was the first time it was held online. You know the story - computer crashes, virus attacks, rumours of repeated questions etc. Well, it went well for me. I also took XAT for the second time.

Then there was the long wait for results. I was planning the future course of my life without correctly understanding the meaning of 'Man proposes, God disposes'. My plan was - I would do an MBA, then appear for civil services. I was even thinking of taking a combination of Management and Economics for the Mains after the MBA as it would be easier after the course. My parents had agreed to sponsor my studies, thus obviating the necessity of working after MBA, so that I could appear for the CSE as soon as I passed the final year.

I also remember Joe's, Ammu's and Ranju's futile attempts to cheer me up by inviting me to get-togethers and treats. The only thing I wanted at the time was to be left alone. However, it also greatly comforted me; for it is great to know that your friends are always there for you, no matter how down and out you are. Here is a big, heartfelt THANK YOU to you three and others who tried to elevate my mood by playing to the universal addiction - FOOD!!!

I would have been a textbook case of clinical depression those days if it had not been for the great and wholesome support of my family, my friends and the internet.

My results came. I had scored 99.94 percentile in XAT and 99.77 in CAT. The CAT score was a bit below my expectations. I still do not know how the scaling was done. I got calls from B, K and XLRI. That was some good news after a long, long time.

I between, I had received news that I had qualified for interview in the Engineering Services Examination. I had taken it in my final year at college, at my parents' insistence. The interview was at UPSC in Delhi. Given my track record of 'success' in technical interviews, I was as confident of making it as water can be confident of burning. Still, after the stint at the Academy, even the mere utterance of 'UPSC' invokes awe in me. And so I decided to go. I came to know about the B, K calls while I was in Delhi for the interview. The interview went very well. Especially after the interview board chairman found that he liked me. When I left, I knew that I had fallen in love - with the UPSC, of all things!

To state the truth, after the XAT result had come out, I had joined Career Launcher at Trivandrum for my interview preparation. The person in charge there was Jayesh, an IIM-A alumnus and a former civil service aspirant. When he came to know that I too wanted to join the service, he asked me why I wanted to do MBA. That was a question I had not asked myself after the CAT 2008. It finally occurred to me that after all, my heart may really be no longer in it. I just wanted it as a kind of revenge. And this want of mine was ruining my peace.

We can do right things for the right purpose, wrong things for the right purpose, wrong things for the wrong purpose and right things for the wrong pupose. But doing the right thing for the wrong purpose is the most debasing of all - it essentially robs you of your humanity. I realised that I was searching for happiness in the most unlikeliest of places and in the most improbable way.

I made some friends at CL - Elizabeth and Abdullah Chaudhary ('the shepherd from Andalusia') were the most supportive. They taught me the importance of listening to what my heart was saying - and to go with it. I finally learned to listen to the voice and not the noise. However, my 'passion for revenge' was still blind, and that made me more confused than I ever was. My ESE interview occurred in the midst of this confusion.

My Life, To Hell and Back: Part I

I had enrolled in the coaching class for preliminary exam at the Civil Service Academy in August 2009 just to pass time till CAT 2009. My parents were worried that I would become too depressed if I stayed at home. And they were not ready to send me to work. I know now that secretly my dad had wished that I would take the programme seriously. But he also knew that I hated the idea of being a civil servant at the time.

I still remember almost being kicked out as the classes were overcrowded before finally being admitted after taking the entrance test. I was asked to write an essay on 'Why I wanted to be a civil servant'. I had no idea, so I blah-blahed about the Collector coming as the chief guest at the school annual day and being inspired by the respect given to him. My essay, surprisingly, impressed the Course Co-ordinator.

I hated attending the classes. The course had actually started in June. So I was supposed to copy the notes of the earlier classes for all the subjects. After one or two tries, I gave up. There were only a few subjects I liked - Biology, Sociology and History (only because the teacher taking the class was supremely sarcastic and I loved sarcasm when not directed against me!). I attended only two classes in Geography during my entire course. The teacher was extremely good but I was phobic to Geography. 'It causes me to snore'. Chemistry and Mathematics were too simple to sustain my interest. As I had no idea what political science was, I bunked the subject altogether. On top of all these, I would try, daily, to make some silly excuse to escape attending the class. I even got a TT vaccination for a small wound inflicted by the sharp edge of a KSRTC bus door for the purpose. And stayed at home for two days claiming that the pain in my hand was severe.

Of all the weekly tests conducted there, I attended only one. Letters with 'Performance not up to the expected level' made routine appearances. My parents ignored them. It seems that somehow they guessed that I would change my opinion soon.

All these indiscipline on my part was not due to confidence. In fact, I was left crushed and bruised after the CAT 2008 fiasco. My self confidence was at par with the height of Mariana Trench from the sea level. I lived life like a zombie. I saw CAT 2009 as the only way to redeem my self-worth and dignity.

Very slowly, I began to appreciate the classes at the Academy and the beauty of the subjects. Still I could not bear any pain, so I bunked the classes I thought would not sustain my interest. Then I caught a severe flu and was confined to clinic/home for three weeks. In between, there were other interviews for jobs and I was rejected in all those. Life was hell at the time.

Sociology was a comfort, though. I loved the subject, with its twists and turns, crazy, weird customs, weirder theories and the hopelessly wide area of study - the human society. Much different from the dry area of electronics, my subject at college.

Classes ended in December. By that time, I had decided that I would attempt to become a civil servant after I completed MBA from one of the IIMs. I announced my decision to my parents and they smiled.

The Arab Revolutions

Tunisia's Ben Ali has left his palace for Saudi Arabia, Egypt's Mubarak has said he will step down in September and the Yemeni President, Saleh too may be gone soon. And even Jordan's King Abdullah II may soon lose much of his powers if he doesn't play his cards right. Seems like the 'revolution virus' that had infected the east European nations which led to the downfall of many pro-Russia regimes has mutated into an 'anti-U. S. ally' strain infecting the Arabs. Indeed, all the three that are facing problems now are/were dictatorial regimes close to the U.S., allies in its war against terror and suppressors of radical Islam. What went wrong?

It cannot be economic problems alone. The people of these countries are far better off than the citizens of North Korea which is supposedly 'Communist' but is nothing short of an oppressive monarchy feeding on the blood of its people. Neither can it be the fact that human beings ordinarily get bored when a guy rules them for a period of more than ten years continuously. Just look at Fidel Castro. He gave up his presidency to his brother Raul only when he became too sick to run the country. Any sign of revolution in Cuba over this family rule? Nope. Suppression of religious radicalism by secular regimes? Remember Saddam Hussein. Freedom due to internet? Singapore. And also, Egyptian protests continued despite the internet disruptions. Discontent of youth that constitute a large section of the population? What about the remaining Arab countries?

It is a combination of all these factors that is at work here. Firstly, the governments are all dictatorial regimes at odds with the general sentiments of the people. No popularly elected Arab government would ever dream of aligning with the U.S. as long as it so blindly supports Israel in all matters. Nor would it be so intolerant of the people's growing 'attachment' to their religion in face of severe economic hardship. Marx had said that 'Religion is the opium of the masses.' I am forced to agree with him for once. Then you have a huge segment of the population in all these countries which falls in the category of 'educated, unemplyed youth', which if mapped from political science to military talk, corresponds to 'RDX with a detonator.' With internet to help you organise protests against old men who should have retired long ago and with all the rhetoric in the international community about supporting democracy(?) in Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, etc., etc., it is a wonder that revolutions are taking place such a long time after the economic downturn began.

Honestly, economy is the major factor here. China and Singapore are not as worried about revolutions as we would like them to be as their citizens have too much work to do. In a booming economy, revolutions are confined to the dreams of lunatics. In stagnant ones, however, the call for a revolution will find support even among people who are well-off. Still, for protests to actually occur, there are pre-requisites like awareness about the misdeeds of the regime and a hope that the sacrifices that will be made will fetch rich dividends in the long run. Sure, there are idealists who will willingly give up their lives for their cause, but the mass movements required for the removal of an entrenched government can be organised faster and sustained longer only if their leaders promise to improve the financial condition of the people (and not necessarily the nation). Of course, people do not like being told that they shouldn't wear their religion on their sleeves, but majority wouldn't mind if they gain from it. That is the reason why even non-Wahabis migrate to Saudi Arabia. And also why the Emirates are comparatively liberal.

Another important requirement for a revolution to succeed is that the government and the protestors should not have any major common enemy/rival. Both the Chinese and the Chinese government view the U.S., Japan and the Western countries as threats that seek to undermine the story of the nation's success and contain it. Pakistan has India, Iran and quite a few countries around it have Israel. From the above examples, it seems that geographical proximity to this rival is essential too, for the governments to whip up emotions in support of it. Or is it that it is more convenient to accuse and fight with your neighbours?

So, dictators of the world, if you have ruled for more than ten years, your economy is in a shambles, your population is young and you have suppressed their aspirations - economic, religious, political and other categories, and yet allow people to freely access internet and gain knowledge about some dangerous concepts like democracy, liberty, equality, human rights, etc., then please be ready to fly out of your country. Pack your bags with the riches you have accumulated (You can't trust the banks now, with the Wikileaks!) and have the tank of your plane filled.

Democracies seem to be relatively immune to revolutions, no matter how incompetent the elected governments are. (By a democracy, I mean a country where citizens actually get to vote.) May be it is the blind belief that they can change the system with the ballot that sedates them.

The truth, however, remains: There is nothing permanent other than change and the more it changes, the more it remains the same.

Reporting from Kollam

It is about 3.5 months since I reached Kollam - the land of cashew and fish. The once world-famous ancient port of Tharsis/Nalcynda about which Greek and Roman historians wrote, the part of India richest in thorium, the headquarters of SNDP and the only corporation in Kerala under the Leftists - that is one hell of an introduction!

Famous for Kundara proclamation, it is also home to the Thangassery port. It used to be an important trade centre - especially during the time when western India traded with China. It finds a mention in the Bible. Kollam actually is the Sanskrit word for pepper. Shows how really important this city was in the trade of spices.

Whatever it was, you get the feeling that this place has lost its glory now. It lost its importance as a port gradually. Still, at the time of independence, it was an important industrial centre of Kerala - ceramic factories, mills, other industries - most were closed down due to labour unrest. The only industries that remain are the cashew processing factories and a few public sector industries mainly related with titanium and rare earth mining.

Of course, the place is rich in fish. The very idea of getting fresh fish from Neendakara is very enticing and relieves the pain of having to shift from the comparatively noisy city of Thiruvananthapuram to the almost dead quiet here.

There are more places to visit - Ashtamudi and Shastamkotta lakes are said to be breathtakingly beautiful. I have only seen the Paravur lake while travelling to and from Trivandrum and that is a small one compared to the other two. Still, the sight was something I still relish.

Kollam beach is said to be a dangerous place. I still do not know why. Visited it but found no danger. Not quite as beautiful as Shanghumukham or Veli but you still find it a pleasant place to spend your time.

Lack of good libraries and book stores is something that this city definitely suffers from. Surprising too, considering that this city is home to quite a few famous colleges of the state. Maybe, the college libraries and the internet are sufficient for the students. Or may be I am living in the wrong place.

The worst thing about Kollam is the absolute recklessness of some of the private bus operators and crew. Accidents are almost a regular occurrence here and people were enraged enough to set fire to a private bus involved in such an accident. It is safer if you travel in the KSRTC buses but sometimes, you don't have a choice.

The dominant communities here are the Ezhavas (this city is home to the SNDP headquarters), Muslims and Latin Christians. Like in most other parts of the state, community loyalty cuts across parties and party loyalty cuts across communities. Kollam is home to the progressive and conservative elements of all of them. (I don't think I need to elaborate on this. ) The most important peculiarity of this place is that while it appears to be an active volcano at times, it is actually as cold as the Antarctic. The people of Kollam actually are no extremists, just average citizens who go about their lives. Like the rest of the humanity.

Democracy: A Lie, A Religion Or The Science Of Vote Banks

Is democracy actually government 'of the people, by the people, for the people' as Abraham Lincoln had described it once?

A Lie: Democracy literally means rule by the people. Since taking the opinion of the entire population on every issue is cumbersome, people elect their representatives to govern them. This is done through periodic elections.

Unfortunately, the voter turnout in elections is 50-60% in most countries. Again, first-past-the-post system in which the person who gathers the highest number of votes is declared the winner effectively ensures that even a person with the support of only a minority of the population, say 20-25%, can win the election if s/he can get all of them to vote.

The party system makes it more complicated. The political parties may field candidates who are disliked by the electorate based merely on their proximity to the decision-making centres (read: high command) rather than on the basis of popularity or competence. Again, all or some policies of a political party may be against the general opinion of the public. In such cases, people vote not to select the most desirable candidate as it should be, but to eliminate the least desirable ones. The public has no option other than doing this as it costs money to contest in elections and hence, an uncorrupt political party is an oxymoron.

Even if all the voters vote and the desirable candidate wins, a majority of the decisions a representative takes will be against the wishes of his supporters. Also, only a minority of these representatives actually take decisions. Others remain puppets. If they choose to disobey, there are the party whips to show them their place. Hence, the decision-making power remains concentrated in the hands of a select few as it has been for the past two millenia. Why do we then call it democracy?

A Religion: Any mass movement assumes a quasi-religious appearance at some point of time. You can say that it is in its dark ages when people are persecuted for saying anything aginst its high priests - in this case, against politicians. Journalists and activists who try to bring out the deficiencies in the system (read corruption, lack of transparency, illegalities, etc.) are routinely victimised in any democracy. Elections are mere mass rituals. You can sense it by the euphoria before and on the election day, the promises of creating heaven on earth and the near-angelic candidates. Any action against this sham is blasphemy - sedition. Any word against a high priest (read: a powerful politician) will result in ignominy. Any person who refuses to donate to the ruling political party when asked to do so becomes an outcaste - he will have to forever revolve around government offices to get his work done, will be treated shabbily and tortured emotionally. Do you need any more proof of the fact that we are living in the dark ages of democracy?

The Science of Vote Banks: Power is captured nowadays more through whipping up of fear rather than promises of manna from heaven.The political parties divide the electorates into vote banks based on imaginary or real fears. Bush's re-election based on anti-terrorism plank, Conservatives' election based on the anti-deficit plank and so on are examples. Citizens are thus being forced to live in a state of perpetual fear and never-ending state surveillance of their lives. What are we so afraid of? Do our fears have any solid basis? Did Iraq actually have chemical or nuclear weapons? Did the attack on Afghanistan actually make the world a safer place to live in? Will the Conservative government in Britain manage to arrest the slide of Britain?

It is logical to be afraid when important decisions are made in the name of the people when they actually derive no benefit from those decisions.

So with the public divided on inconsequential matters, the winning an election becomes a matter of merely sounding and appearing more righteous than your opponent on those. Or making your opponent appear dirty. Chances of winning increase when you 'belong' to the 'majority' or the 'significant minority.' It is the game of numbers - divisions based on race, caste, class and even the schools the candidates attended and the nationality of their spouses. Which century are we living in?

Why should the electorate be bothered about the details of the private lives of candidates if they have good track records? Why should we be made to listen to name-callings, accusations, retractions, etc on irrelevant matters? 'Divide and conquer' has conquered politics. With ugly consequences.

Karl Marx, Class Conflict and Our Future

I am no expert on Marx and I just have a very peripheral idea about what his work was all about. I know that is bad, especially coming from a state where his name divides the people into two opposing camps. Maybe, some day.

The point I found interesting is that Marx defined his 'exploiter-exploited' relationship under various means of production. In feudalism, there was the landlord-serf relationship, during slavery there was master-slave relationship and so on. In the present capitalism, of course, there is the capitalist-labourer relationship. Now, while looking at feudalism and slavery, these systems were not destroyed by the 'exploited sections'. Slavery ended mainly due to the efforts of free men and not slaves themselves and feudalism ended due to the efforts of the newly born capitalist and merchant classes. So we find that it is an emerging 'middle class' that effectively put an end to the previous form of exploitation. Only those classes had the means to achieve their ends. Again, these efforts were aimed at strengthening these emerging classes and curtailing the power of the ruling classes of those times. The lower classes, though they participated, were more like lambs being herded by leaders from the 'middle' classes.

Now, if that is the case, capitalism, going by the history of its precedent 'forms of exploitation', will not be taken down by the proletariat which according to Marx, will become a 'class-for-itself', but by the class that will capture power from the capitalist class. Moreover, this emerging ruling class will have, among its members, a significant number of people who belong to the existing ruling class too. That is, there will be a group which will be constituted by an overlap of the existing and the future ruling classes. For example, a significant number of early capitalists were also aristocrats and landlords. They paved the way for the emergence of capitalism. Again, the emergence of any new 'means of production' has been a gradual, comparatively peaceful process encompassing within itself fleeting but bloody political revolutions as well as enduring movements for social change. These movements as well as revolutions are generally led by members of the emerging ruling class, with a majority of these leaders coming from the transitional class. The transitional class appears to make the inevitable process of change less painful to the class that is losing its power. Nevertheless, it is painful.

Looking at the current scenario, it appears that the technocrat-professional manager class is gradually displacing the capitalist class from the positions of power. Governments are getting increasingly bureaucratised, family-run businesses are making way from professionally run ones, politics is being controlled by lobbyists who in turn obey the professional managers. There is a significant overlap of the two classes - capitalist as well as managerial now but we do not know if this will continue in the future. With services gaining an upper hand on manufacturing, knowledge-technology combine may soon displace capital-labour combine as the predominant means to create wealth. Or may be it already has.

The emergence of each new 'means of production' has enhanced the probability of increaed socio-economic mobility of individuals. If you were born a slave, most probably you died a slave unless your master took pity on you. In capitalism, a person born in the working class has a greater probability of making it to the higher strata. This mobility is bound to increase with the rise to the pre-eminence of the managerial class. The world will require good managers, no matter what their background is. Governments will universalize education not out of compassion but because they need good managers to stay put in the race.

We may also witness an era of cold-blooded rationality soon. In feudalism, the landlords could afford to take decisions about production based on emotion alone. Capitalists rely more on rationalism, but occasional emotional decisions do occur. However, managers, with their first and usually their sole responsibility to their firms may find it hard to factor in emotions - even if they would like to.

Of course, greedy managers are going to mark the initial phase of the rise of the managerial class. That should come as no surprise. From our experience in India, we know that the first few generations of landlords were bloodsuckers. And nobody needs to be reminded of the working conditions in the factories across the world during the initial days of capitalism to prove how greedy early capitalists were. If we link the salary of the managers purely to the profits generated or the revenue generated, we cannot remain blameless when managers act ruthlessly without regard for others.

Increase in 'alienation' remains a strong possibility. According to Marx, production was more fulfilling in the days of primitive communism i.e., ancient, primitive societies, when men produced as well as identified themselves with the goods they produced. Their thoughts were parts of their selves, as were the things they produced. In feudalism, they became alienated. The landlords took many of the decisions regarding production. Capitalism resulted in the almost complete transfer of decisions regarding production to the capitalists but at least the thoughts of the labourers were their own. In managerialism, as knowledge becomes the source of wealth creation, thoughts and ideas woukd become properties of firms and man will have nothing to call his own. The social networking sites are only a beginning. The future is as scary as it is exciting and we do not know we are headed. Happy journey, mankind!

Pearls of Wisdom

"We cannot give out the foodgrains in the FCI godowns for free even if they rot because that would cause a fall in the foodgrain prices. Farmers would cultivate something else then. We will have to import more food. International prices will go up on our demand alone and we will have Balance of Payment difficulties again, as we used to have. That's why the PM was opposed to the Supreme Court direction. Though people die."
-An economist friend.

"So during an oil spill, oil forms a layer over the ocean, which effectively cuts off the oxygen supply to the water beneath the layer as atmospheric air now finds no avenue to dissolve in it. The oxygen content in those parts of the ocean now falls, sea animals have no oxygen to breathe and hence they undergo the process of dying"
-Chemistry teacher from school.

"Madam, how can I know if the train will come on time? I am not an astrologer"
-Railway helpline in one of its initial days.

"Why do they say 'Praise the Lord' when the priest declares that the service is over?"
-Me, at the age of five.

"But sir, amoeba is shapeless!"
-A student protesting her low marks in the science test due to lack of resemblance between the picture she drew and the one in the science textbook.

Poem without title

I walk with no end in sight.
I walk alone in the night.
Tears of grief not met by words of love.
Fears of doom not met by words of hope.

False hopes had I many.
The light I saw was a mirage.
Death now doesn't scare me any.
Waiting for my turn to turn into ash.

Alone I've been, through my life
In solitude and in company
As well in joy as in strife
Only me and me in harmony.

Sounds of joy, though brilliant, are hollow
Much like the seven colours of the rainbow.
Colourful, they mask more than they show.
Grief is the light and the path for man to follow.