Mea culpa

Life in Shimla

2012-01-16T19:26:00.000+05:30

Shimla, the capital of Himachal Pradesh, is my home now. It has been one month since I've landed here. Though not exactly in love with the place, I like it very much. The only thing that makes me slightly annoyed is the hopelessly cold weather here. The temperature occasionally falls below zero degree Celsius. And it snows. While it is fun to watch and play in the snow, the danger comes when the snow sets. It becomes really slippery then and it is a pain to walk on kilometers of roads paved with dirt and ice and snow.

The main street here, called 'The Mall', boasts of being the longest pedestrian shopping centre in Asia. Though the state government now allows the tourist vehicles to park on the roadside, the Mall Road is still safe enough for pedestrians to walk with closed eyes as long as they don't slip on the snow.

The Jakhoo hill is the highest of the seven hills that comprise Shimla. It has a tall statue of Hanuman that is visible from any point in Shimla. Trekking to the top of the hill in a definite time duration is used as an indicator of health.

The Institute of Advanced Study, formerly the Viceregal Lodge, is another beautiful building here. Once upon a time, whole of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, etc - almost half the globe was governed from here.

The Cold Heart

2011-12-29T11:03:00.001+05:30

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'

2011-11-25T08:57:00.001+05:30

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

2011-11-16T12:48:00.001+05:30

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

2011-11-16T08:55:00.001+05:30

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

2011-11-07T14:40:00.001+05:30

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

2011-10-17T08:38:00.001+05:30

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

2011-10-16T12:45:00.001+05:30

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

2011-10-08T10:09:00.001+05:30

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

2011-10-07T10:52:00.001+05:30

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.

2011-10-01T15:55:00.004+05:30

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

2011-09-28T21:11:00.000+05:30

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

2011-09-27T18:10:00.001+05:30

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

2011-09-03T20:51:00.002+05:30

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.

2011-08-11T16:45:00.001+05:30

The Physics of GoI

2011-06-07T00:23:00.001+05:30

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

2011-06-04T13:22:00.003+05:30

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

2011-05-27T15:08:00.001+05:30

'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

2011-05-23T11:16:00.001+05:30

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

2011-05-22T15:00:00.001+05:30

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

2011-05-20T09:22:00.001+05:30

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

2011-05-18T13:32:00.002+05:30

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

2011-05-13T22:34:00.002+05:30

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

2011-05-12T12:37:00.000+05:30

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

2011-05-08T10:22:00.001+05:30

'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

2011-05-01T15:51:00.001+05:30

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

2011-04-21T10:34:00.000+05:30

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

2011-03-07T13:20:00.002+05:30

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

2011-03-07T11:49:00.002+05:30

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

2011-03-07T11:05:00.004+05:30

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

2011-03-07T10:29:00.002+05:30

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

2011-03-07T10:00:00.002+05:30

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

2011-03-07T09:10:00.004+05:30

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

2011-02-04T00:47:00.001+05:30

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

2011-01-21T21:38:00.002+05:30

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

2011-01-12T10:07:00.001+05:30

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

2011-01-11T22:45:00.001+05:30

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

2011-01-10T18:48:00.000+05:30

"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

2011-01-09T22:30:00.000+05:30

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.

Stupid Dreams

2011-01-06T17:47:00.000+05:30

In school, we had to learn about the history of India. It was a huge headache for me to mug up all the dates and names of all parties, political parties and so on. Needless to say, Jinnah was a villain whereas Nehru, Gandhi, Patel and Bose were heroes. To be honest, I had to write the mains exam to finally have a little more balanced view about the incidents that were taking place at that time.

I had a dream once - that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh would reunite to form a strong country that would be a marvel in the history. Even the Kargil conflict couldn't kill my hopes. I thought that peace was possible, after all. Only the political parties on both sides and the Pakistani military establishment were responsible for the bloodshed that was and is going on. There was scope for cooperation and people would see reason in the end.

No more. The praises showered by even the general public on Mumtaz Qadri, the assassin of the Punjab governor Salman Taseer makes me thank Jinnah for dividing India. I mean, how can you live with guys as block-headed as that? The blasphemy law in Pakistan, interestingly, was the creation of the British rulers to maintain peace between the two communities in the British India. During the time of Gen. Zia ul-Haq, the provisions were made more stringent. The punishment now varies from a fine to death sentence. Though no one has actually been executed, many of the alleged blasphemers have been killed by mobs. And the mob doesn't follow the due process of law, of course. Someone just has to report that the person he intends to destroy has committed blasphemy. The next thing you know is that s/he may be cut into pieces, bullet-sprayed or set to fire. There are, of course, enough financial and other rewards to anyone who helps in the execution of these 'blasphemers'.

I just can't imagine that a section of Kashmiris wants to join a country as hopeless as that. Earlier, while reading about the lawyers' and people's campaign to restore democracy in Pakistan, I thought it still had a chance to redeem itself. However, looking at even the lawyers supporting Qadri and hailing him as a hero, I really doubt if Pakistan can ever become a genuine democracy. After all, if even the governor of one of the richest states of Pakistan had to part with his life for defending what he thought was right, what can anyone else do?

The end of the world

2011-01-03T23:17:00.000+05:30

A news report that some people believe that world would end on May 21, 2011 was the most emailed one on Yahoo! I am reminded of an article about 'boring days' that I had read a few days ago. On 18 April 1930, the BBC news bulletin had said: 'There is no news'. Something similar seems to be the case now. There is only gloom and doom everywhere and people are tired of the news about scams, unemployment, inflation and Chinese aggressiveness. So end of the world seems to provide a bit of comic relief to the readers. It felt good to read it. I mean, it really can't get any worse than this, right?

It has been quite a long time since I watched news on TV. I do not find it worthwhile to spend 30 precious, unrecoverable minutes of my life on some dumb programme which shows the 'twists' in some godforsaken reality show as the breaking news, makes 'expert panels' (yawn!) analyse the issue in between long durations of mindless, gutless and heartless ads. I have more to say, but I fear the censor board. Not the official one, but the all-pervading 'conservers' of Indian culture who think that the utterance of even a word against the established interests amounts to sedition, war against state, etc., etc. Is this what you call a democracy? You will find mass murderers roaming free in this land while the innocent languish behind the bars for crimes that they have never even dreamt of committing.

We have a new controversy in the state: should genetically modified crops be cultivated in Kerala? Now you must understand that Kerala does not really cultivate much of anything that can be used as staple food and that its economy sustains itself through export of rubber, spices and people and sales of services, beverages and lottery tickets. We import everything else - fruits, vegetables, poultry and dairy products and even food grains. If the rice cultivation in Andhra Pradesh is affected due to drought or flood, Malayalis are the ones who are going to go hungry. So we are having heated discussions about imaginary threats. This is not a recent phenomenon. We were worried about the CIA overthrowing our state governments, ETs poisoning our water sources, river water losing its 'life-force' as electricity is generated by extracting the essence from the river waters in hydroelectric power plants, computers making all of us unemployed, Thakazhi indulging in plagiarism, etc., etc. This state is a 'conspiracy theory cluster'.

I too have one, if you want it: The guy who begs in front of the L____ church in Trivandrum is a spy. I have no idea for which country he works, but the fact that he dines in the decent hotels in the city when no one is watching him and the fact that many of the senior officials of the state attend the Sunday Mass in this church corroborates my theory.

Glad to add my bit to this huge prison of phobias and fears we build for ourselves. Really, the end of the world story will appear amateurish to the people of Kerala.

New Year Resolutions

2010-12-31T22:02:00.000+05:30

I have decided to make no new year resolutions this time. I've had too many and the usage that 'resolutions are made to be broken' has become impeccably true in the case of all my new year resolutions.

My resolutions are usually:
1. 'I will blog more consistently.' Never worked out.
2. 'I will try to lose weight.' Almost always failed. Usually would put in a month's hardwork and then put on a couple of extra kilograms to make up for the 'loss'. So no pressure this time.
3. 'I will become a little more serious towards life.' After two years of joblessness, this is a resolution I ought to be making but I'm afraid making it will undo the whole thing.
4. 'I will try to connect in a better manner with other people' i.e., cut down on selfishness. I still am in a dilemma. Am I selfish? When I decide that I'm selfish, I usually surprise myself by doing some good deed and vice versa. So I intend to continue in my ambivalent state. Like China. 'We understand India's aspirations with regard to UNSC reforms etc. etc.' These guys must have had years of training in symbolic logic of the Asimov kind.
5. 'I will finish reading the Foundation series.' I am working on that.
6. 'I will get a real job.' With this one, let's see if GoI becomes kind enough to finally send me my appointment letter.
7. 'I will use my talents to their maximum extent.' I dropped this one when I found that I have no talent of any valuable use.
8. 'I will be more optimistic.' Found I can't be more optimistic than my current levels seeing what condition we are in and where we are heading to.
...

So my resolution is to live life as I've been living for the past couple of years till someone forces me to get out. And that event, I'm 'afraid' is not going to take place any time soon!

Happy new year to all the morons reading this crap! May you get a real job this year! ;)

The Coffee Club, China and India

2010-12-13T20:33:00.000+05:30

The Coffee Club is a group of countries that aim to thwart the efforts of the G4 nations to get into the UNSC by expanding it. G4 are the four countries that have the maximum probability of making it to the UNSC - Brazil, Germany, India and Japan. The Coffee Club officially goes by the name 'Uniting for Consensus'. Its leading members obviously are Argentina, Mexico (both opposed to Brazil), Italy (against Germany), Pakistan (eminently guessable) and South Korea (against Japan). There are about 40 members in the Club that was formed in the 1990s.

The 2005 text of the proposal for Security Council reforms by the Coffee Club calls for retaining the five permanent members. Another 20 non-permanent members would be elected for two years - six from Africa, five from Asia, four from Latin America and the Caribbean, three from Western and two from Eastern Europe. As you can see, that was no reform at all. The Coffee Club is a grouping India will have to take into its calculations while trying for a permanent seat.

China is another prominent headache. It is the sole permanent member of the UNSC that is not supportive of India's candidature. Though the last statement from Beijing hinted at a change in China's position, we cannot trust it until it openly proclaims its stand. China may not support India because firstly, it doesn't think India is worthy of a seat at the high table and secondly, the support will be seen in Pakistan as nothing short of betrayal.

That means that even if India gets Obama's support, U.S. does not have to worry about India's candidature for a long time. So we will continue to provide soft loans to Africa, lobby for the support of virtually-unheard-of-nations for at least one more decade and try for better relations with the land of ping-pong diplomacy (which is an impossible task). From the experience of other countries, it is obvious that a country can have good relations with China only if it no poses no threat whatsoever to China in any sphere which it cares about AND China needs it for some reason. Though China needs India for both markets and some raw materials, India is a rival to China in many spheres. That is going to make life difficult for a good number of Indian diplomats.

In short, achieving that permanent seat needs people of exceptional ability and intelligence in the External Affairs Ministry.

Fraudia

2010-12-12T11:23:00.000+05:30

The newspapers in Kerala are having a wonderful time thanks to the jobs-for-money scam that has been unearthed. News nowadays has become more interesting than soap operas with real-life, believable allegations, counter-allegations and drama. People having connections to both political fronts are involved, with plenty of suggestions of backstabbing, wheeling and dealing, etc., etc.

I think that we have become so hardened by the almost daily exposure to these scams that we no longer feel abhorrence when we read about them. I read the scam about the organic farming money chain with an almost voyeuristic pleasure. Couldn't help smiling at the idiocy of the people who fell prey to these literally unbelievable scams. I mean, don't people have the commonsense to understand that the rates of return these companies promise are beyond the realm of possibility?

A long time ago, I used to believe that people here were fooled because of the lower quality of education we had. Bernard Madoff did me a great service by proving that it was not true. People with doctorates in financial management can be fooled too, provided you are sufficiently sophisticated.

Uncles, aunts and 'chechis'

2010-12-11T09:50:00.000+05:30

In India, we have the peculiar custom of calling any man reasonably older than us 'uncle' and any woman 'auntie'. Anyone below that particular age limit becomes a 'bhaiyya' or 'didi' (older brother or sister) or another local variation of the two terms. It leads to comical situations. For example, our former landlord's granddaughter used to call me 'chechi'(older sister). I used to call his mother 'chechi'. She used to call my mother 'chechi'. So logically, the kid's mother becomes his older sister. If that was funny, listen to this. The daughter of my current landlady calls me 'auntie' and my sister 'chechi'. Needless to say, I am mightily miffed!

This bizarre custom started as a way to show respect to older persons. It was sensible as India was a patriarchal gerontocracy. Now, however, with the gradual emergence of equality and rationalism, this custom ought to be buried. I find no sense in calling a person 'chechi', uncle or auntie when they are in no way related to me. I believe there are many similar souls who feel oppressed by this irrational system of nomenclature; who find that they have become uncles or aunts even before their sisters or brothers get married. I don't believe that calling a person by his name shows disrespect. Respect can be shown to others in much better ways than by adding useless tails to their names.

Madness

2010-11-27T09:47:00.001+05:30

Francois Voltaire once said that madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast or of one thing too exclusively. If that is the case, most people in the world are mad. How do you define 'too fast' or 'too exclusively'? Or is it that we have redefined madness? The latter seems more plausible as this is an era which promotes what Voltaire calls madness.

Recently, I had a chance to get acquainted with a mother and a daughter, both of whom are considered to be 'a bit mad' by the society in general. No, they have both never been to a psychiatrist and do not take any medicine for their 'ailment'. I found that their 'diagnosis' was based on three observations:
1. They were pathologically curious about the things normal people tend to ignore in their normal lives.
2. They usually have an abnormal fear of the disasters that might strike them and have a habit of telling others about them in a quite descriptive manner.
3. They ask uncomfortable questions quite persistently.
Though both of them have been non-violent through their entire lives (except for the time when they pick up fights with each other), I live in the fear of meeting either or both of them.

'Am I mad?' is a question I asked myself after meeting them. To be honest, I have been pathologically curious many a time and I do have a fear that things may go wrong but I do not ask uncomfortable questions. So is it just the third factor that distinguishes me from madmen? Deep down, I know that I am insane - neither my actions nor my thoughts conform wholly to the standards of rationality set by the society. That brings us to some other questions - is the society sane?

How are rationality and sanity related? I have seen perfectly rational people being called 'insane' and vice versa. So we can conclude that rationality and sanity are almost independent of each other. The society is not rational, and in the absence of rational standards, it cannot unambiguously define sanity. There will always be an amount of vagueness when it declares a person sane or insane.

The sanity of a person is a position-dependent, time-dependent variable. For example, if the three characteristics I have described above, were to be exhibited by a highly respected social or natural scientist, he will still be considered normal. Hence sanity depends on social position. The higher you are in the social strata, the more it takes to be declared mad. Again, excessive inquisitiveness will be more readily forgiven in a traditional, rural society than in a modern society. So sanity depends on the social milieu in which you live. The definition of insanity also varies with time. A person who renounces all that he has and roams around in the streets in rags has a greater chance of being locked up in a lunatic asylum in India today than say, about four or five hundred years ago.

Given that insanity depends on too many factors, is it fair to declare a person sane or insane? Our sanity today may be sheer insanity tomorrow. Just as we find 'sati' an insane act today, following a religion may become a sign of insanity tomorrow. What is sanity, after all? Isn't it finally, another barrier erected to separate man from man, to keep away the people who threaten the order in our lives, who upset our comfort levels by asking us uncomfortable questions and articulating their fears, which, though irrational to us, may be perfectly rational for them? Who are we to decide rationality and sanity, given that throughout the history, these concepts have changed, sometimes overnight, sometimes through centuries? Who am I to call a fellow human being insane?

Power corrupts

2010-11-21T11:16:00.001+05:30

So Raja has been sacked, PM finds himself in a tight spot and so does the Karnataka Chief Minister. The CWG scam has begun to take its toll as the heads begin to roll. Welcome to the latest season of corruption scams. The 2G scam of 1.77 lakh crore rupees (INR 1770 billion) is the biggest one the country has seen. And the poor Prime Minister finds his hands tied because of 'political compulsions'.

Unlike the Nehruvian era, the post-1990 period has seen only coalition governments at the centre. National parties do not have enough influence over all the states. So in order to form government at the centre, these parties are forced to enter into agreements with the regional parties. These agreements are virtually deals with the devil, leaving little or no room for it to carry out its agenda. While these alliances had a moderating effect on the pro-Hindutva BJP government, for the current UPA government, most of these are burdens that slow down the growth of the economy with their corrupt practices and/or populist policies.

Regional parties are not inherently evil. Most of them were founded with the noble cause of integrating the neglected sections of the society into the political mainstream. However, to compete with the might and the strength of the established national parties, they had no option other than to rely on the financial support from 'dubious sources'. And this is not the story of regional parties alone. National parties too are split into various factions in all states. These factions too behave in a manner similar to that of the regional parties to sustain themselves. So the parties are corrupt at the grass-root level. And the national leaders are the ones who win the rat-race at the local level in such a fantastic manner so as to attract the attention of the 'high-command'.

The cost of contesting in elections has increased manifold. So the leaders who can 'arrange for' sufficient funds emerge as either kings or king-makers in the states. They also get to have a say on who gets which ministry at the centre, especially if they belong to the regional parties. These ministers then have to give concessions or 'make adjustments' to please their 'financiers'. What happened in the 2G scam is only a more obvious instance of this widespread phenomenon. Again, the ministers also make hay while the sun shines. The cases of the current Karnataka CM is an example. He 'gifted' valuable real estate at throwaway prices to his relatives. The interesting point is that, the Congress is using this scam as a shield to counter the opposition attacks. There is a general feeling that the parties, national and regional, ruling as well as opposition, are using these scams as mere tools to capture power. They have no serious intention to root out this menace from the society. 'We are like this only' is their silent refrain. 'Why blame us alone? The others too are as corrupt as we are' is another one. Sometimes it seems as if India survives in spite of 'democracy', not because of it.

Politicians are not the only ones to be blamed for this. Bureaucracy too plays its part. The Weberian concept of its neutrality has been modified by many public servants in India to 'servility for the furtherance of personal interests'. The question is, when the dishonest public servants are colluding with the politicians to undermine the institution of democracy, should the honest ones be forced to maintain their silence in the name of anonymity? To what should the bureaucrats be more committed to - the political institutions which are being compromised almost on a daily basis or the Constitution which embodies the values which our founding fathers cherished?

Indian society does not support a whistle-blower until s/he either dies or becomes successful in spite of tremendous odds. Admit it - the common man is a coward, a creature more pre-occupied with his daily life rather than any national interest. It has been so for a long time and I see no reason why it will suddenly change for the better. So, if the country goes to the dogs, let it go. I will not raise my voice against anyone as long as I get my bread and butter, though it may be adulterated.

The Right to A Plug-point

2010-11-16T09:45:00.002+05:30

The Right to a Plug-point (RTAP)was a term coined by me while at the hostel. The hostel rooms did not have plug-points and you could charge your mobile phones and laptops only in the office room. The door of the office room could be opened only when nuns authorised to do so wished to visit it, which was only a few hours everyday. That meant that unless you had advanced surveillance equipment(read: a friend in the ground floor near the office room), you either had to forget about charging your phone from the office or risk having your phone trapped in the office room from morn till night. Most of the times, it was a touch-and-go affair.

My friends and I had heated debates on how to avoid such problems. The first solution was to use piezoelectric crystals or solar cells attached to the mobile phones for charging them. Then we found out that they were pretty much useless for smartphones. The next solution was wireless transmission of power from the electric cables to the phones. However, sensing that the idea, though workable, would not be feasible owing to huge wastage of power and also billing problems, we ditched that idea too. The only thing that remained was the good old 'wireful' transmission of power, whether we liked it or not. The Government had to declare RTAP as a fundamental right if it wanted the country to progress.

Later on, I read somewhere that Japanese were trying out the idea of wireless transmission. Also that many of our villages do not have access to power. Coming from two opposite ends of the spectrum, they amused me.

The Digital Divide in our country can be bridged only through mobile phones. No matter how cheap the laptops and PCs become, there is a huge section of people who will never be able to afford them. Also, they consume more power when compared to cellphones. They have 'fancy' software most people will have no use for. Plus, a computer without an internet connection is virtually useless today, unless it is used for billing in a grocery store. Also it requires an almost continuous supply of power. After all, how long can a laptop be run on its battery alone?

Compare that with a low-end smartphone. At about INR 3000-4000, you get a smartphone that helps you communicate with others, access internet at dirt-cheap rates, do not consume half as much power as an average laptop and allows you to draft documents, powerpoint presentations, watch movies and listen to songs. Plus, it is completely wireless.

The only thing that is missing now in those villages is the plug-point. People do not buy mobile phones in these villages as they know that they will not be able to recharge their batteries. That missing plug-point can save lives, help farmers earn more money, increase government efficiency, cut down corruption, bring in financial inclusion, promote education and what not. There is no limit to what that cellphone in your hand can do once you have a plug-point.

( When I hear of colleges banning cellphones, I can only marvel at the idiocy of such reckless orders. These are instances of dumb logic. E.g: 'Knives are used for killing people. So let's ban their use.' Instead of teaching the students how to use the devices in a responsible manner, the authorities instead opt for the easy way out - banning them. Banning something is never a solution. In fact, that itself is a problem greater than many others.)

So, dear citizens of the country, who want this nation to progress and actually become a superpower, who think that the dream of creating a 'knowledge economy' in this country can be realised, who know that Digital Divide is an artificial divide that denies a majority of our citizens the information that can change their lives for the better, I request you to chip in and spread the word about RTAP. The Right to Power ought to be a fundamental right in this digital era.

;)
P.S: Though this is a post written in jest, think about it sometime. And remember to do your bit when time comes.

Accountability? What's that?

2010-11-06T17:53:00.001+05:30

The concept of accountability has become alien to this world. You just have to look around to see that.

Till yesterday, I wished to have a gun.

Today I want to become, somehow, Secretary to the Government of India in the Department of Telecom. I want to have the power to revoke the licenses of the companies that send me dumb advertisements, make telemarketing calls at the most inappropriate time and promise things that they cannot deliver.

I am feeling depressed as I can't access 3G! ;(

Where is TRAI when you need it?

The Idiot

2010-11-04T22:27:00.001+05:30

I have always been a very remarkable person owing to my idiocy. I fumble when I shouldn't and appear smart when I should be acting like a fool. Knowing my behaviour well, my English teacher gifted me Dostoyevsky's 'The Idiot'. She had, in her beautiful handwriting, written 'To Anu Jose' above the book's title so that it read
'To Anu Jose The Idiot.' Seeing that a comma would not be out of place, I made suitable modifications so that it read 'To Anu Jose, The Idiot.' I have been an idiot ever since and slightly proud of it, too.

Knowingly or unknowingly, all through my life, I have been justifying the epithet that fate bestowed upon me. Today for instance:

Scene 1:
It was about 5:30 a.m. Anybody who knows me would know that I am a person who does not know what sunrise looks like. Anything before 7 looks midnight to me. So needless to say, I have, almost throughout my entire life, remained a staunch Sunday Christian, an ardent follower of the privatised religion and an owner of a heart with limitless sympathy for persons who couldn't enjoy the bliss of having a dream with the sun watching them from outside the window.

(My parents had, many a time, tried to find a cure for this peculiar malady of mine. Finally deciding that it was beyond their limits, they had given up.)

So where was I? Oh yes, in the bed, sleeping. Suddenly I thought I heard someone knocking at the door. Imagining that I was dreaming, I tried to ignore it. But the knock repeated itself, and I was forced to open the door. To my surprise, I found the Mother of the hostel, standing at my door, telling me, 'The Mass is at 5:45. ' She said something else too, but I could not concentrate on the rest as I was trying to imagine how it would be if I attend the mass at 5:45 in the MORNING! 'Unimaginable!', I said to myself, as I went back to sleep as soon as the Mother left the room. I mean, I can bear 6:30, but 5:45, according to me, amounts to human rights violation. Right to sleep is a more fundamental right for me than Right to Education or Right to Food.

The outcome of the episode was that the nuns in the hostel are now conspiring to reform me into a good Christian. Right now, the girl from the mess came to inform me that the Mass starts at 5:45 tomorrow too. I fear that my stay here is going to be a bit unpleasant for me from now on. :(

Scene 2:
After lunch, we were discussing about the political atmosphere in India, how hopeless the situation was, how the Constitution has become a joke, and so on. The nuns, in their orangish brown uniforms were walking past us as I was giving a talk on how politicians in Andhra were getting rid of EVMs by fielding more than 64 candidates in the constituencies where they wished to indulge in malpractices. (EVMs can be used for a max. 64 candidates. If the number is greater than 64, EC has to use paper ballot.) Then I had a vague idea that the nun standing in front of me looked 'kind of strange'. I was staring at the nun, trying to find out what was wrong. After a good five seconds, I realised that the nun had a long beard, a good moustache and something like a black kerchief tied to the head. I realised too, that the Mother was making gestures, asking me to greet the nun. Suddenly, realisation dawned: The nun was none else other than the Bishop of the Diocese and I had been staring at him in the most peculiar fashion for a whole and entire one minute! :(

When I was writing the GS paper of Mains, I was telling myself, 'Life can't get any worse than this!' But now, my life is telling me:

'Picture abhi baki hai mere yaar!' :(

Ways to Waste

2010-09-24T18:38:00.003+05:30

We have put up a very poor show in preparing the ground facilities for the XIXth Commonwealth Games that will start on October 3. If the photos of the beds with pugmarks, leaking toilets and stained washbasins are genuine, I can quite assuredly say that those standards of hygiene cannot be tolerated by any human being with an iota of dignity.

Where did all the money go? Nearly 12000 crore rupees have been spent on the CWG. Results are there for all to see. The amount excludes the expenditure on non-sports infrastructure. If this is the way the government spends the money, God save us.

The supposedly 'Green games' involved cutting down of Heritage trees and the designs caused heavy environment to the damage. PILs were filed against these in the Supreme Court by the citizens of Delhi and NGOs but finally SC had to give green signal because 'much time had been lost' and 'damage to environment could not be undone.'

Again, the conditions under which the labourers are being forced to work now involves violation of human rights - low wages, scant or no safety measures and even child labour. Reports of deaths of labourers has been a characteristic of this edition of the Games.

Evacuation of slum dwellers, screening of slums using bamboo 'curtains', demolition of the homes of the poor - all to showcase to the world the 'development' that is taking place in the country. Finally, we have been exposed and our incompetence laid bare by the officials who could not even provide decent residential facilities to the honoured guests. When will we learn?

I am not even talking about the allegations of corruption. No one is even interested in it. The only goal now is to salvage the Games. Corruption has become so institutionalised that it has replaced democracy as the defining character of this nation.

Read recently that the oil PSUs will be buying airtlme from Prasar Bharti to help it meet its target for the Games. The point is, having wasted so much money on such an incompetent and apathetic machinery, why should the public tolerate further wastage by the PSUs? Do the citizens have any say in running those behemoths? Why should the hard-earned money of the citizens be so callously misused by the executive? We, the people of India, are ashamed of our government. I, as a citizen, have lost my trust in it.

To cry or not to cry

2010-09-22T21:21:00.002+05:30

The question whether the Commonwealth Games will even be held now looms large. Even the Indians who used to be a little proud of their nation are now finding it very difficult to defend their stand. Collapsing footbridges, shootouts, reports about the filthy condition of the Games Village - what more do you need to say 'Mera Bharat Mahan'?

If that weren't enough, statements like 'Their standards of hygiene are different from ours', by an official when he was told that the Scottish officials had to scrub and wash their block to make it liveable and that the footbridge collapse was a 'minor incident' by a Union Minister puts you in a confusion - whether to cry or to laugh.

Yes fellows, India has truly arrived with the CWG. It is the epitome of the sheer apathy and the incompetence of the Government of the country. It is really a thing to marvel at - our government - you will never find one like this anywhere in the world. It doesn't even have a sense of shame about letting the country down so badly in the international arena. And where is the opposition when you need it? Why do they not even bother to raise their voice against such a heinous selling out of national prestige? Is the temple the only thing they bother about? Does the sense of pride of the citizens about this country count for nothing?

I find that Mr. Aiyar was right. I just wish we hadn't won the bid for the Games, if only to avoid this terrible shame and sense of pain I am feeling now as an Indian.

Athidhi Devo Bhava? Forget it!

The 'mobile connections'

2010-08-29T14:23:00.000+05:30

A year ago, I would never have thought that my family would end up like this. Right now, the four members are in four different districts of Kerala and the place we call 'home' is a place where none of us actually stay. The connection between the family members is through the ubiquitous cell phone and deprivation of its use due to low charge in the battery or even low balance causes much heartburn. This is the case with many of us today and I feel that I am seriously addicted to the phone. I become very irritable when deprived of it. The two hours I spend without it when I have to charge it seems an endless torture to me. Hell, the joke is that the government must provide us all with free mobile connections and it must not charge us for it because 'free speech' is there in the Fundamental Rights. With the extremely low tariffs prevailing in the state today, it seems that indeed the joke is becoming a reality.

The places with 'low range' are become curiosities. People are increasingly 'networked'. I still feel that I have the same kind of warm relations I had with my family as I feel that they're near and I can communicate with them any instant I feel.

There is a problem, however. When you actually meet the persons you talk with for hours over phone, there is a paucity of subjects to talk on. Everything has already been dealt with. There is nothing new to catch the other's attention. I will narrate an incident. Some of my classmates and I decided to have a get-together last thursday. We met and we ate but we didn't talk as much as I expected. Later, after reaching the hostel, I talked with each one of them over the phone in much more friendly terms than when they were actually present in front of me.

The reason may be simple: When you are actually meeting a real person, you subconsciously decide that the other person would like to hear fantastic things from you. Since you have talked about the 'fantastic things' in your life to practically everyone you care about on the phone, there is nothing left. So after the meeting you sometimes wish had not met. A lot of time, money and planning are requires to arrange direct, face-to-face meetings. You don't feel it worthwhile to waste such precious moments talking about mundane things. The result is the almost silent atmosphere. It would take some time to change this conception and realise that your friends are not really expecting great things from you, but by the time the truth actually dawns on you, it is time to move on. On the other hand, talking on the phone requires little investment and it actually helps us relieve our stress. The net result is that though we virtually converge, we diverge in reality. Mobile connections have really redefined our society and our relations with others. Inspired by Asimov, I am almost tempted to say that this kind of technological innovations may finally result in the creation of a society where members are averse to physical contact and communicate through virtual, 3-D technology.

Madness!

2010-08-28T15:18:00.001+05:30

Recently I happened to meet a girl whose ultimate ambition is to go and settle in the United States.

Reasons: 'Leaves of the trees there change colour, there's a lot of snow and you can wear whatever you want.' She doesn't like India because 'people are too inquisitive, there are potholes in the road and people are not really enthusiastic about gender equality.'

She has plans about her marriage too. She will marry only a guy from a big city which has a hall big enough to suit her dreams. In Kerala, that rules out all cities except Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam. The guy must either be already settled or be ready to settle in the U.S. He should have the smile of the film actor Madhavan and must not have too many principles. She wants the ceremony to be conducted at night. Most importantly, she will marry only in the month of January.

I was quite bewildered when I heard the last condition and asked her the reason. She said: 'Suppose you get married on 30 Dec 2010. When a friend asks you, in say, January 2025: 'How long have you been married?', you'lll have to say that you've been married for 2025-2010=15 years. Whereas if you are getting married on 2 January 2011, you can say in 2025 that you've been married only for 14 years. So your friend'll think that you're young!'

How is the logic? My jaw dropped then, and it has not fully recovered yet.

N-Bill for aam admi

2010-08-28T14:12:00.002+05:30

The Central Government has got the Nuclear Liability Bill passed in the Lok Sabha. As citizens, we need to know what the Bill is about and its implications for us. The newspaper articles are loaded with technical terms and so, here is a simple write-up on the Bill.

We will start with some definitions:
Operator: The company that will operate the plant, i.e., the reactor and all the related stuff. Now the government allows only public sector companies like NPCIL to operate the plants. However, in the future, government may allow private operators too and this is a major bone of contention.
Supplier: The company that will provide the equipments and the technology to make the power plants. Unlike India, many of the Western countries allow private research and development in nuclear sector. So the suppliers are usually private companies like Areva(France), GE(U.S.), WMG, etc.
Operator liability: Money that the operator is to pay to the victims in case a nuclear accident occurs. The accident may occur due to negligence of the operator, faulty design of the equipment by the supplier or among other things, even a natural disaster like an earthquake or a wildfire.
Right of recourse: Actually means right to recover a bad loan but in the present context it means the right of the operator to sue the supplier if the latter had given the former faulty equipment.

Why we need this Bill?
As Dr. Singh said, this is all for energy security of the country. We don't have much petroleum left, hydel power projects have a long gestation period and there are environmental considerations, wind is a bit boring and unpredictable, solar power is a bit too expensive and biogas is well, you know, unfeasible because of the distribution pattern of cattle. So we're left with only the nuclear alternative now. Though many consider them unsafe, it is a fact that about 16 countries depend on nuclear plants for meeting more than 25% of their energy needs. Topping the chart is France, with approximately 75% of its energy production coming from this single sector. India's current capability is about 4.56 GW, which comes to around 4.2% of the total energy production in the country. We plan to increase it to at least 20 GW by 2020. We also plan to have a 9% share of n power in the total energy production within 25 years. For meeting all these sky high figures, we need fuel, technology and experts.

That's where the Bill comes in. None of the countries where the headquarters of prominent nuclear plant equipment suppliers are situated allows them to have a contract or an agreement for supply of their goods unless there is a civil liabilty act in place that specifies how much they will have to pay in case of a nuclear accident. U.S. is particularly insistent upon it. Our deal with France also includes a clause for the establishment of a nuclear liability regime. So the matter is, no one will do any real business with us until the Bill is passed. Of coursee, we are free to use our own indigeneous reactors and technology but an expansion as our energy policy envisages requires the participation of foreign companies.

A liability bill is also required so that the victims can know whom to approach for compensation and also its quantum. Once a mechanism is properly in place, the disbursal of funds in case of an accident will be faster and more transparent.

We also require this bill to compatible with the Convention on Supplementary Compensation. This convention is the successor to the Paris and Vienna conventions. Before you stop reading this fearing the assault of technical jargon, I'll tell you that CSC essentially has three conditions:
1. Full legal liabilty of the accident will lie exclusively with the operator.
2. Doing away with the requirement to prove the fault, negligence or intent of the operator.
3. Exclusive jurisdiction to the courts of the country.
The operator will have to pay at least 300 SDR in case a nuclear accident occurs. If the operator doesn't have that kind of money, the country where the accident took place has to make available public funds for covering the rest. Now comes the most important part: If the damage is more than 300 million SDR, the rest of the amount will come from an international fund set up for the purpose. So, it is a kind of insurance.

Reasons for opposition and some points:
You have been bombarded with details about the Bill by the media. So there's no point in talking about them. Still, here are the principle points of opposition:

1. Liability cap of the operator is too low: INR 1500 crores. Maximum liability is fixed at 300 million SDR, or approx. 2050 crore rupees. The operator liability cap is lower than that in U.S., but highee than that of France. The initial amount was just 500 crores which has now been raised.

2. The provision that the operator could sue the supplier only if there was a written agreement or if the supplier had an intent to cause damage etc. has been modified. Now suppliers can be sued if the accident was caused by any act of the supplier or his employee. There is no need for an agreement now.

3. Fear of private operators: Right now, only public operators are allowed, i.e., government has to have a 51% stake in the company for it to benefit from the liability cap. So the taxpayer has to subsidise the remaining 49% shareholders. Only NPCIL will be operating the plants, it seems, for at least a decade.

4. The time limit for filing the damage claims was just 10 years whereas the damage may become apparent, in many cases, only after 15 years. This has now been extended to 20 years. International conventions allow even 30 years.

5. The Claims Commission was reported to be filled up by bureaucrats, with no representation for activists, scientists or members of civil society. Right now, however, I read that SC and HC can be approached for review of compensation amounts. Also, the claims must be disposed within three months of application.

6. There is an ambiguity on whether the victims can file cases against the supplier.

7. It is not known whether the AERB entrusted with the task, is independent enough or competent enough to review the designs of the equipments of the foreign companies.

There are many other legal problems as well i.e., regarding distinction between 'liability','strict liability' and 'absolute liability'. Moreover, CSC, the last time I heard, was not ratified by enough number of member countries for it to come into force.

So there are problems as well as some good points about the bill. What is required is awareness of citizens and faultless implementation from the side of the administrators. Hope this bill will end our nuclear apartheid, as Dr. Singh had said.

P.S: If anyone feels that there's something wrong with or in the post, please do comment. We're all in this together!

Islam and Extremism: A Layman's Analysis

2010-08-19T18:05:00.002+05:30

Today I happened to meet one of the supporters of Maudany. To all your surprise (and mine too), the supporter is a Hindu woman staying near Anvarssery in Kollam. Unlike others, she insists that Maudany is an innocent man being falsely accused of crimes he did not even know about. She admits that his speeches might have contributed to the growth of extremism in Kerala but argues that they were 'reactions' to the Babri Masjid demolition.

So, the question is: Who is to be blamed for the unexpected rise of Islamic extremism in Kerala? The question needs to be answered because Kerala is a state known for communal harmony and has a prosperous Muslim community. Government provides reservation to them. To all outward appearances, they have no reasons to complain. Yet, extremism is on the rise in the state.

The reasons are manifold. In spite of their material prosperity, many Muslims remain educationally backward. Female literacy, in terms of both numbers and quality, is low when compared to other communities. There is a visible divide between the progressive and conservative sections. Conservative sections tend to live together in close, closed communities with little or no interaction with others. They migrate mainly to the Gullf region where the chances of getting into contact with extremists is probably higher. Persons migrating to other states may have to face discrimination - Kerala society is (or was) less discriminating because the minority community constitutes a good percentage of the total population. There was greater people-to-people contact, resulting in a better understanding of each other's religion and customs. That fostered an understanding which is difficult to find today. This need not necessarily be the condition of other states. This may have led a minority of the educated, young and modern Muslim youth to take solace in the teachings of extremist preachers. With no one else to guide them, they might have got involved in anti-national activities. The activities of this minority has created such a terror in the minds of the general public that currently Muslims in general and young Muslim men in particular have become objects of suspicion.

One cannot blame the public for this. During my entire school life, from class I to X, I did not have any Muslim student in my class. In classes XI and XII, when I was studying in a different school, the number of Muslim girl students was zero and the number of boys was below five. How can you then expect me to have any real understanding of Muslims? My sister, unlike me, did have a Muslim girl in her class. She was, however, from an extremely liberal family of engineers, and was as clueless about Islam as my sister was though my sister belonged to a different community.

That precisely is the root of the problem. The progressive sections tend to neglect the religion completely and hence move out of the larger Muslim community. They tend to have no voice in the community. The conservative sections, however, tend to become more assertive as more liberals move out. They impose their interpretation on others and prevent external interferences. This scares out the remaining liberals. Thus, paradoxically, the communities become more closed as its members move out. The remaining nucleus becomes too polarised to be amenable to reason and rationality and an easy breeding ground for extremists.

The problem is further compounded by the fact that a majority of the Muslims literally know nothing about their religion other than the customs they have to follow - believe in Allah, pray five times a day, observe fast during Ramzan and go to Mecca if possible. Quran is written in Arabic which a majority do not understand. Translations in local languages are not popular. People thus have to depend on preachers who are either not well-versed or who have a totally wrong idea of Islam. Their teachings and interpretations destroy the efforts of the real scholars to bring Islam in line with the modern times. The result? Alienation, confusion and chaos. The extremists' teachings also give a wrong impression to followers of other religions who lose the trust in Muslims that was built upon the efforts of many centuries.

The media too, acts as a facilitator in this process. They tend to portray these extremists as the representatives of the community and the real voice of its majority whereas the actual majority has nothing to do with them. A liberal Muslim thus is made a misnomer rather than a norm. This results in alienation which tends to support the rapid growth of extremism. Thus media actively constructs a nightmarish reality from nothing, thanks to its monstrous use of misrepresentations and misplaced priorities.

Other communities too are responsible for this menace of extremism. Any increase in the level of community-feeling in a group is bound to create fear in the minds of other communities. Unless the concerns are properly addressed, this fear will naturally lead to an increase in the community-feeling of other groups too. People will then to identify more with that aspect of their personality which they think is threatened and hence needs to be protected. This is just a manifestation of the basic human instinct of self-preservation. The point is that, the rise in extremism and the increasing assertiveness of Muslims when it comes to their religious identity are symptoms of their belief that Islam is being threatened by external forces. This is precisely the reason why bans on veil will lead only to further isolation and an explosive growth of extremism.

The reasons themselves suggest the remedies. The politicians and the leaders know what they have to do to prevent the clash of civilizations. What is lacking is the political will, which, surprisingly, may be attributed to the growing democratisation of the world which tends to follow the will of the majority that in many cases may be irrational and sometimes, even terribly destructive.

Caste and Census

2010-08-19T15:54:00.001+05:30

Not surprisingly, the Group of Ministers has decided to go in favour of the first caste Census of independent India. The last caste Census was in 1931. Though the first Commission on Backward Classes under Kaka Kelkar had recommended a caste census in 1953, the government had rejected it then, upholding Sardar Patel's words that 'A caste census would never be held in independent India.' How the times have changed indeed!

Caste in India is a phenomenon that has defied all attempts to destroy it. It survives through Khap panchayats, honour killings and forced marriages. It is a fundamental factor in deciding one's status in the society. The same government that claims to be fighting against casteism, refuses to grant reservation based on economic criteria and chooses caste as the basis instead. This is an example of how the policy of government is different from the actual ground position.

So, finally, let us face the truth. Caste will not go away from the Indian society. Even the religions transplanted to India which originally had nothing to do with caste now promote and practise their own versions of casteism. Indeed it appears that the line 'Kuch baath hai ki hasthi mit-thi nahi hamari' was written about the survival of the caste system through the centuries. Buddhism failed, Jainism failed, even Islam failed in spite of its idea of 'Universal Brotherhood'. What can a mere government do to eliminate a system that even Gods and their prophets failed to change?

The government seems to have recognised that instead of hanging on to the utopian dream of Sardar Patel of 'an India of equal citizens', it is better to do some real work on the ground to uplift the citizens belonging to the so-called 'Backward Castes' of India. The Caste Census will provide the Government with accurate data of the beneficiaries it intends to target in its programmes for 'inclusive growth'. It is quite bewildering to think that the government had been relying on the extrapolations of the 1931 Census data and sample surveys to calculate the number of people belonging to the Backward Classes. So it is well and good that the government has finally decided to go in for caste census.

The opinion that the Census would divide the country on caste line is illogical. Caste considerations influence politics heavily even otherwise. One has to just look at the candidate list and the dominant castes in the constituencies they are contesting to be convinced of it. This tendency has already reached its peak in India. The census is in no way going to accentuate it.

However, it is one of the paradoxes of history that the caste census would take place along with the biometric stage. Mixing the highly sophisticated technical stage with the archaic caste consideration. Symbolic of India - on the path of growth with the help of technology but still heavily influenced by irrational cultural elementts. One is tempted to say 'It happens only in India!'

To Serve in Hell

2010-07-11T15:17:00.003+05:30

Residing in a hostel has taken a heavy toll on my capability of rabid sarcasm, especially because I am surrounded by gentle people of the genteel class. Having been brought up in a rough and tough environment where every word you uttered was subjected to intense scrutiny as if you were undergoing training for diplomatic service, it is very difficult to suppress the smile that appears on your face as the innocent people around you speak unknowingly of the meanings you glean out of those pearls of 'wisdom'.

So I find myself among little angels and slightly mischievous angels, and I, being a devil's advocate, find that I cannot really relish my company. It is always straight talk, not the intellectual tomfoolery of words I indulge in. A little solace is obtained during one of the History classes but otherwise, life has become a barren land; a picture in black and white in straight lines with no scope for even a shade of grey.

It is not the food that I miss. The milk here conforms to the Agmark and ISI standards, and the diet is balanced, and to my taste. But I feel starved of the sense of comraderie I used to feel at my home, my school and in my college; those endless discussions about topics which verged on absurdity, those statements which were the results of fleeting instances of brilliant insanity - all good old memories which help me survive in this desert of goodness and regularity.

The person who said that it was better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven was clearly exaggerating it. That statement shows lack of experience in succumbing to temptations, especially the intellectual ones. He should have known.

The Football Menagerie

2010-07-11T11:47:00.003+05:30

I wish I were an octopus. Or a parakeet. Or whatsoever animal that supposedly has 'psychic' powers to predict the outcome of football matches. Whew! Am I tired of seeing that ugly eight-legged creature again and again!

My theory about it: that poor octopus selects whichever container has maximum food. For the first few games, the decisions of octopus coincided with the outcomes of the matches. After that, the prophecies of the outcomes became self-fulfilling as they began to subconsciously affect the players. So the octopus begins to get a 100% success rate.

I sincerely wish Holland wins today. For the sake of rationality!

Happy Hartal

2010-07-05T10:29:00.002+05:30

So we are celebrating the second hartal in a week against the decision to decontrol the petroleum product prices. This hartal too, like other previous ones, is going to be a 'massive hit', as they say. Mind you, while the rest of the country is going to reel under the effect of 'Bharth bandh', we in Kerala will be having a mere 'hartal'. The bandhs are formally banned in Kerala since the High Court verdict.

Why are hartals successes in Kerala? It is because the average Malayali is a perfect mixture of laziness and cowardice. S/he will not go out for two specific reasons:
1. This is a day you get to enjoy. You can see long queues in front of the Beverages Corporation's liquor shops and poultry stores on the day before the hartals. No one wants to venture outside to spoil the 'Marx-given manna' of a holiday.
2. You fear for your life/vehicle/property. We are so used to the sights of broken glasses of the KSRTC buses and burnt down vehicles that appear on the news channels in the nights of hartals that nobody even thinks of risking their precious four-wheelers. Now, even the state-run KSRTC is not an exception.

The matter of the fact is, Kerala is dominated by two sectors - agriculture and services. Agriculture cannot be very much affected by these hartals. The people who work in the services sector are only thankful to get a day all for themselves, given that most of them work for six days a week rather than five. The hartal, therefore, comes as a relief.

The only vehicles that seem to ply today are the vehicles of the ISRO, the firms of the Technopark and some mopeds. The life in the state is 'paralysed', as the Malayalis want to celebrate a day with the liquor bottles they are so fond of. They have little real concern about how the common man is going to be affected by the price rise.

After all, in a state where crores and crores of rupees are spent on conspicuous consumption, in a state where even the lowest strata of the society indulges in blatant consumerism, how on earth is a few rupees' increase in prices of petroleum products going to matter?

P.S: I know that the price rise is going to affect the Malayalis more than the people of any other state as we are dependent on others even for the food we consume. As the ultimate consumers in the great market of India, we are the ones who are going to be fleeced the most. But these hartals or bandhs are not going to force the Centre to change its decision. It is hell bent on cutting its deficits to find funds for its social security programmes. So these are perfectly useless ways to waste our time, money and energy. Still, who cares as long as we get a holiday?

Democracy goes to the dogs

2010-07-04T11:50:00.001+05:30

'We agree to disagree', this seems to be the motto of mankind today. Take any issue today - from environmental protection to caste census, the world is so divided into polarized opposing camps that any consensus is impossible. And unfortunately, this is the time the world has to act if it has to survive.

What is it that causes such divisions in the society? It is not as if conflicts are products of modern age. They have existed since man was born. And the leaders have dealt with them, not always effectively, but dealt with them nevertheless.

Today, however, we see leaders who are spineless, who bend to populist pressures (instances of political leaders coming out in support of khap panchayats for the sake of a few votes) and who are, if I may say, so bereft of leadership qualities that I cannot but marvel at my fellow beings who made them leaders. Has democracy become a bane?

It appears so that indeed it has become a bane. The movements in support of khap panchayats, Tea Party are all perfectly legitimate democratic movements. So was the National Socialist (Nazi) movement too. Indeed, it is fair to remark that democracy works well as long as the leaders have the charisma to make people go through the necessary ordeals or the people are sensible enough to understand what is actually good for them. However, that no longer seems to be the case in any country now.

Take U.S for example. Everyone knows how hard it was for its President to pass the health care reform bill. He may even lose the next elections because of that. A perfectly sensible President becomes unpopular within a few months since he entered the office. Compare it with the case of its former President who was re-elected in spite of leading his country into a perfectly useless and dumb battle.

Or take the case of India. Politicians of all hues are coming out in support of the antiquated, outdated and mindless institutions known as khap panchayats. In case you haven't read, they want the Hindu Marriage Act amended to suit their wishes. And quite unfortunately, there is quite a good number of citizens who agree with them on this. So, who knows?

Now take the European Union. It somehow scraped through the last crisis. And Merkel's popularity in Germany has nosedived. So much so that the recent Presidential elections went into the third round, thanks to her rebellious partymen. Now, Merkel had to support the EU. She had no other way out. Yet she is being crucified for some decisions that as the Chancellor of Germany, she was BOUND to take.

Everybody blames the politicians whenever something goes wrong. Being a politician is a very, very thankless job, especially if you are sincere and honest. And dictators, no matter how terrible they are, always find admirers. Call it 'the incurable lure of absolute power'. Just look at the Chinese, North Korean or Cuban rulers. Or even the Russian President. They are subject to far less criticism than the U.S President, the German Chancellor or the Indian Prime Minister even though the last three are doing far better jobs in the face of more severe challenges.

Democracy works well and good in a country where citizens are sensible, intelligent and well-informed. Sensibility went to the trash bin the day social networking was invented. Intelligence had already been out of fashion since the age of teevee began. And somebody called this the 'The Age of Information' but I think they missed out the 'Mis' that came before the last word.

I hope I will survive this.

Being a woman

2010-06-20T11:27:00.002+05:30

Recently a girl I know went to a very famous hostel in the city for admission. She did not join, however, as she found that the hostel would not allow mobile phones inside. This girl is addicted to internet and mobile phones, and cannot live without them.

The above mentioned incident has occurred many times over in the city. Many girls give up their gadgets for the security of the hostels. It is a classic case where one has to choose between freedom and security. Many prefer the latter. And that is sad. There are many women's hostels in the city which give greater freedom to their inmates. Then, why on earth do some hostels still continue with bans on use of technology? I admit that there have been incidents of misuse of mobile phones. But these are isolated incidents. Why should the great majority of law-abiding, 'decent' women suffer because of the pervertedness of a few?

The question here is: why women alone are targeted in such bans? It is far more sensible to ban them in Men's hostels then, as they are usually the ones who spread the porn content they get. Will anyone dare to do that? No. So women continue to be punished when they are actually the victims. Much like the women who refuse to go to toilets in hotels after the 'cam in the loo' incident.

After some hue and cry, the issue gets buried. Though Kerala boasts about its great strides in female emancipation, the condition on ground is worse than you can imagine. No girl dares to step outside her house after 8 in the evening. If anything happens, it is always her mistake.

To hell with it guys! I am no feminist. I just demand that women too get equal opportunity to do everything that men usually get to do. We too are human beings

French reforms

2010-06-19T10:43:00.003+05:30

The French President is trying his best to raise the retirement age of his countrymen to 62. He wisely announced the final measures of his reform programme just before the French went on vacation so as to avoid the crippling strikes that usually make headlines all over the world whenever some reform measures are announced.

The social security system in France is rather lavish; something we can't even imagine in this country. Paid vacations, free medical care, heavily subsidised education even in liberal arts and unconventional subjects and nothing to say about unemployment benefits. All this makes me wonder: how on earth did France manage to scrape through the crisis that engulfed many of the countries of the EU? Germany's case can be understood easily. They are....well, Germans. Period. But France, that heaven of nihilists and anarchists? That I could not comprehend until I learnt about the attitude of the French to their work.

The people of France, whatever work they may do, consider it their moral duty to do it perfectly. A person who works need not bow to his master in this country. That is what makes France and the French truly great.

Will Sarkozy be able to 'reform' the social security system of his country? That is a question only the future can answer. The system was devised in a different era - a time when sub-prime crisis did not exist, when the trading in derivatives was far more sensible and when the country had enough surplus. To think that the system will be able to survive the evil world of today is to be naive. Whether the French will be able to understand the predicament of their President is the question that needs to be answered. Because reforms are never easy. And more so when it affects a majority of the population and bring them out of their comfort zone.

The Great Blockade of Manipur

2010-06-10T16:16:00.000+05:30

In case you guys do not know, there is a state in India named Manipur. It is located in the north-eastern part of the country, near Myanmar. The reason I am stating this is the abysmally low coverage given to the highway blockade of Manipur spearheaded by the United Naga Council and supported by the All-Naga Students' Association of Manipur and the NSCN-IM. This has been going on for the past two months and I bet you would not have even heard about it.

The blockade was started by ANSAM on April 12 after Manipur decided to hold elections to elect members to the six Autonomous District Councils in the tribal hill districts. The ANSAM says that ADCs do not have sufficient autonomy to deal with the issues of the tribals. The Naga demand for amendments to the ADC Act was rejected by the state government led by the Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh. While the NSCN-IM opposes the elections as it would throw up new Naga leaders and thereby weaken their demand for the Greater Nagalim, the Chief Minister supports the elections for the very same reason.

The issue worsened when the NSCN-IM general secretary Thuingaleng Muivah, the charismatic leader of the Nagas, was denied permission by the Manipur government to visit his birthplace, the village Somdal in Ukhrul district. Three people were killed and about seventy injured in clashes related with the incident. This 'justifies' the government stand that the visit would evoke communal tension in the state.

The communal tension is a pre-existing condition in Manipur. The Meiteis, comprising the majority live in the Imphal valley which constitute only 10 percent of the geographical area of the state. The remaining areas are inhabited by the Nagas and Kukis. The Nagas want these areas to be part of the Greater Nagalim. The very thought causes terror in the minds of Meiteis as well as the Kukis, who are dead against the division of Manipur.

The blockade of the two National Highways, NH-39(Imphal-Dimapur), the 'Lifeline of Manipur' and NH-53(Imphal-Silchar) has affected the lives of common people in Manipur and enters the 60th day today.

Manipur faces severe shortage of essential commodities, especially food, fuel and life-saving medicines as a result of this blockade. They are very much used to blockades, as we are to 'hartals' but this one has become severe due to its long duration. A kilogram of rice sells for Rs.60, a gas cylinder sells for more than Rs.1000, all while the Central Government looks on.Surgeries are being postponed and people are in severe distress. Two main hospitals in the state have stopped functioning. The blockade continues in spite of requests by humanitarian agencies, political parties and even the Centre.

The Manipur government has resorted to airlifting rice and medicines. Also 500 trucks were brought in through NH-53(which is in deplorable condition) with state security via Assam. The only highway that remains is NH-150(the Tipaimukh Road). However, the vehicles using this road to travel from Silchar to Imphal have to travel 512 kilometres whereas they have to travel only for 212 kilometres on the NH-39.

Whither justice?

2010-06-08T11:40:00.000+05:30

Finally, after a long wait of more than 25 years, the Indian judicial system today gave its verdict in the Bhopal case. Seven accused get a maximum of two years' RI. Warren Anderson, the then-chairman of the Union Carbide continues to live happily in New York. He is an 'absconder' in India. The seven accused, meanwhile, have got bails - that saves them from even the meagre punishment they got. Well done, India! Well done! Mera Bharath Mahaan. Gandhi would have been proud today. I am waiting for the Nuclear Liability Bill. The implications of that Bill is going to prove worse for India.

You know, when there are more than a hundred crore people living in the country, who is bothered if some scores of thousands die? Show me the money, honey!

Nothing in particular

2010-06-05T20:57:00.000+05:30

Classes at the Academy start only on June 9. I have decided to take Pub Ad and Socio as my options.(Still can't forget the smirks on many faces when they first heard the phrase 'pub ad'!) Unlike its abbreviated version, public administration is a subject you can read only if you have a tremendous amount of willpower. Sociology is more of a gossipy kind of subject. I am talking after comparing everything with engineering, of course. Engineering was precise, accurate and actually, boring. Sociology is anything but the above three. Confounding questions like 'Is touching the feet of your elders a norm, a custom, a more or a tradition?', details of interesting customs like kula and the rather eccentric observations of the sociologists like 'avoidance between relatives is practised to avoid incest'(This is obvious: Freud's opinion.), ideas like the class struggle of the Marxists, the Fourth World, the Post-Industrial society, the theory of power etc make it a really interesting subject to read. Where else would you find Plato, Marx, Spencer, Comte, Freud and a host of others together?

Now, to today's news. The Flotilla story is slowly losing out on its coverage in newspapers. There was an Op-Ed by the Israeli Ambassador in NYT. Read it to have a balanced view. Whatever that means. Meanwhile Israeli PM says blockade will continue.

There is a really a lot of discussion going on about the EA minister's to the US. Barry is coming to India in November. US says it is 'definitely committed' to consider India's demand for UNSC seat. Our Prez went to China recently. I could not make out what they said about it. Most of the newspapers say the leadership has supported India's demand but I find that particularly difficult to believe. You'll have to give me the entire sodium chloride on this planet to make me believe that. Most probably, China will change its stand when it comes to voting. I believe the journalists have really misunderstood what the Chinese premier was saying. After all, we are not so proficient in Mandarin.

Not so about English, though. Another Indian-American has won the Spelling Bee contest. Why don't they outsource the contest to India?

Nearer home, Phet spared Gujrat, but struck Oman. There was a fire in Bangladesh. (Seems to be a problem with colonial-era buildings. They are catching fire like dry log wood these days. May be its the temperature. Global warming sceptics, please take note! )

Everyone is talking about doing something about N. Korea. However, N.Korea has nukes, and Dubya is not in office. So, by deduction, there won't be war in that region. I just can't understand why everyone is so concerned about N.Korea. Those fellows are not going to start a war. Not with China around! Why is no one bothered about those trigger-happy nutjobs in Pakistan? I would have felt safer if Iran had nukes than Pakistan! At least, that country has a government!

Time to be irreverent

2010-06-04T14:48:00.000+05:30

Japan has got a new Prime Minister. I am tired of reading this. Naoto Kan takes over from Yukio Hatoyama. Only if the Japanese had simpler names!

Ajmal Kasab appeals against his death sentence in Mumbai High Court. Just when it was all over. Sometimes, civil rights can be pretty irritating. Like this one. When it is as clear as daylight that Kasab was one among the terrorists, why is it taking so long to hang him? Where are the fake encounter specialists when you need them?

Arundhati Roy thinks Maoists are Gandhians. Just wondering what her ideas about Gandhi are.

India loses again to Zimbabwe. The news was buried deep inside most of the newspapers. Are these the 'hidden depths'?

In spite of visits by about half the Who's Who in the US, oil keeps leaking in the BP well. Why don't they use Fevicol to fix it? aise jod lagaye yamraj bhi tod na paaye

Meanwhile there is a lot of noise about India in connection with the EA Minister's trip to the US. We will get a clear picture only after the dust settles. The best thing to do is not to read newspapers during the visit. Read the reports dated half a week after. That gives the real picture.

North Korea is threatening the South with war. India and S.Korea have got a peculiar similarity - both have absolutely nutjob governments in countries to their north. Still, any day, North Korea is better than Pakistan!

Supposedly someone has written a book about Sonia Gandhi. Though Madam herself has no problems with the book, it seems her supporters have oodles of them. BJP meanwhile is supporting the book citing something called the Freedom of Expression. It is an article in our Constitution, by the way. ~~Once upon a time there lived a person by the name Jinnah....~~

Almost everyday, there's another article titled 'Another mishap averted at ... airport'. It is almost as if these journalists are waiting for a scoop. Why don't they do a TV series on the dangers of Indian airports if they are so concerned about it? And cover it till the Government does something about it rather than jump to the next story?

That's all in today's news.Have a nice day.

In defence?

2010-06-02T19:55:00.001+05:30

The Israeli attack on Flotilla came as a shock to everyone. Use of force on this scale was unexpected and I must say, unnecessary. The incident took place in international waters, and that makes it more worrying. Is Israel going to stop at nothing? The Flotilla incident has resulted in widespread condemnation of Israeli action but this too, will be forgotten soon. No country in the world today dares to stand up to Israel. Why?

Today's The Hindu carried the statement of the Prime Minister that terror would be fought 'root and branch'. I wish that were really true! If you look at it, we have too many kinds of terrorist groups in the country. Islamic extremists, Maoists, the uncountable number of -ists in the north-eastern region... the list goes on and on. And we have poorly equipped police forces in most of the states. On top of that, there is severe shortage of manpower too. This is not the ideal way to go about the task if the PM really meant it.

The interesting fact is, everyone seems to know how to fight terror: use force against the terrorists and win the hearts and minds of the locals. The question is, why is no one able to do it?

I am worried about the rate at which Japan seems to be changing its PMs. The Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama is stepping down as he could not fulfill his election promise of relocating a U.S Marine base. Quite sensible too, if you look at it. You are the Prime Minister of the country and you cannot get a foreign military base to be relocated, it doesn't make much sense to be holding the position, right? Thank God for the Non-Aligned Movement. That is one thing for which I will be forever grateful to Nehru.

News I liked

2010-03-12T16:06:00.000+05:30

Delhi High Court today directed the Centre to grant permanent commission to women serving in defence services. Till now, women could join the Army only as officers under the Short Service Commission for a maximum period of 14 years. Male officers could receive permanent commission after five years. This is a better thing than the Reservation Bill. Btw, did you know that Pakistan and Afghanistan also have reservation for women in their legislative bodies? Anybody thinks the situation on the ground is going to improve for the ordinary women?

I like Putin. Have been smitten by him ever since I first read about this ex-KGB spy. In fact, I think he was a better Prez for Russia than Obama is for U.S today. Strong, decisive and powerful - that's Putin for you. Well, the news is that he's in India on a 22-hour visit to visit more than a dozen pacts, mainly defence deals. Just wishing the Russian aircraft carriers would be as reliable as their PM.

I just don't understand why people are bothered by what Sarkozy and Bruni do. Grow up, everyone! I am fed up of seeing the French Prez's pics. Also of the news reports about what Michelle Obama wore when she went to god-knows-where. Don't we have enough problems in the world to solve?

But all that fades into nothingness when channels start about Rahul Mahajan. That was covered by even the so-called 'serious' papers. This country is going to the dogs.

China and U.S are meanwhile trading charges over human rights violations. That is funny. Well, U.S violates human rights of citizens of other countries whereas China does that to her own citizens. May be that is the difference.

PC says Pak is a difficult neighbour. I would say it is an 'impossible' neighbour. Its navy tested missiles and torpedoes in the Arabian Sea to warn the ahem, 'enemy'. When will that country realize who its actually enemy is? Today, another 39 people were killed in a suicide attack in Lahore.

What the hell?

2010-03-11T19:36:00.000+05:30

Rajya Sabha passes Women's Reservation Bill. Now clap on your back, all women and men of this wonderful country! Aren't we great? We will now finally have enough women in the legislative bodies to be eye candies. And nothing more.

What the hell is the use of having women's reservation when our Chief Justice says that a woman can marry her rapist if she wants and drop all the charges against him? Everyone knows what will happen if such a practice becomes common. Women will be forced into marriages they do not want once they are raped. This is basically what was or is known as 'Rakshasa marriage'. At least, in earlier times, this was condemned by the society; but now?

Leave that. Everyone knows that most of the women who are going to be elected in the first round will have little or no knowledge of politics initially. Even if they learn something while serving as elected representatives for five years, it is all going to be a waste as they most probably will not get a second chance for the next 10-15 years. What is the use of such a reservation?

Reservation is considered to be a miracle cure for all the ills in this country. We boast of our achievements, which are quite superficial, to be very kind. We dream to be the next superpower when actually more than 60% of the people starve.

Just have a look at this: India's Maternal Mortality Rate(MMR) is 450. Our target is to reduce it to 109 by 2015. I just wonder why Napolean said that 'Impossible' is a word found only in the dictionary of fools. He should have said that 'Possible' is a word found only in the dictionary of the Indian government.

Can any one tell me how on earth is Women's Reservation Bill going to solve the problems of the mangowomen? The policy decision are going to be made by the Cabinet. The government doesn't even take the Parliament into confidence before signing deals with foreign countries. The elected representatives themselves live in ignorance of what transpires; should I say anything about the state of the common man?

We gulp down whatever the media says. If it says the Budget was good, "Oh, it is a terrific budget"; if it says the Budget was bad, "Oh, our economy is going to be affected". The classical case was the n-deal. I am not going to talk about it now.

For now, I will dream that I am in Utopia and that this Bill will solve all the problems of women.

Bifurcation

2010-01-09T11:16:00.000+05:30

The decision to bifurcate Andhra into two smaller states, Telangana and Andhra is causing a lot of trouble in the country. The opposition, it must be noted, is mainly due to the fact that the capital city of AP, Hyderabad is situated in Telangana and logically will become its capital once the bifurcation takes place. The people of Andhra, however have invested much in the development of this city and they fear that they will be the losers in the end.

The way in which the government took the decision and the follow-up measures leaves much to be desired. The issue was apparently decided overnight - without issuing feelers, and worse, without even properly engaging in negotiations with the stakeholders. It is not as if the issue was a mushroom that had sprouted after the first rain of the season. The agitation was going on for a pretty long time and the Central government was apparently disinterested. This attitude caused the proponents of the 'United Andhra' to be complacent - they believed that the issue would die out in the long run. It was only when the fast started, with the general public in Telengana, especially the Osmania University students supporting the cause that the Centre first seriously took up the issue. And quite unlike its general behaviour, made a rapid-fire accession to the demands of the TRS leader. 'Haste where it is undue and complacency where urgency ought to be the norm' seems to be the motto of the Home Ministry. PC ought to have been more careful. The Centre's estimation (if it made any) about the backlash reminds one of the Iraq war - hollow victory and general unrest in regions where relative peace had prevailed before the dumb decisions were taken unilaterally.

Now, a pseudo-war rages in one of the largest states of India and the Centre has only itself to blame. More regions have come up with demands for statehood. A new State Reorganization Commission may be soon set up. The talks between the stakeholders being conducted now are bound to fail - the Centre, with its hasty decision has alienated the rest of Andhra. The mutual trust factor is abysmally low on account of this unilateral action.

The only way out now seems to be the bifurcation of Andhra with Hyderabad as the common capital of the two states, a la Chandigarh. But even the execution of this relatively less troublesome (pardon me, I find no other combination of words that can describe the situation) decision is going to be cumbersome - a consensus has to be reached and there will be one set of fights till bifurcation is completed and another set after that. In future, we may have an agitation from the people of Andhra for a new capital too. Who knows?

Household Logical Deductions I

2009-12-28T17:03:00.000+05:30

(Mom from kitchen) "Where are the three pieces of cake I had kept in this plate?"

Me: We ate them.

Sis: I ate the two smaller pieces.

Me: Smaller? All were equal! Can you explain that statement of yours?

Sis: Well, you came into the room with two pieces of cake. You gave me one, which obviously had to be the smaller one. And I'm sure you would have taken the two bigger pieces of the three. So, that implies that the last piece, which I finally ate, was the smallest of all the three. Am I right?

Me: Yes, dear Holmes, you are.

A conversation

2009-12-19T09:35:00.000+05:30

" Mom, can you believe this? They've lost Mrs. M***'s tapes!"

"What else did you expect?"

"But, come on, those police inspectors who investigated the case put in so much effort to get the evidence. How can the police lose it? This is atrocious! And why the hell are still some people supporting these fellows when there is clear evidence against them?"

"Well, I guess, money has great power."

"But still mom...this is an issue of national security. There is some thing called 'love for your country'. Well, at least I read so in my textbooks."

"Maybe some people missed reading that."

(After five minutes)
"Why don't they just shut down that dumb Consulate in C***? Did you read Mr. Tharoor's statement? That they are searching for the documents?"

" I did"

" Come on mom! How can people be like that? There were clear instructions that American citizens of Pak origin are to be given visa only after clearance. They didn't bother a wee bit about it. So we had the 26/11. Now they don't give the papers. They're not missing, they say; but they are still searching for it!!! What a dumb joke!!! Do they think that people are idiots?"

"People are."

"I guess you are right."

(After a pause, again)
"I can't help but get angry when my government spends such a lot of money on protecting criminals against whom there is clear evidence. I respect the idea of fair trial but it is my sincere belief that when there is clear evidence, the trial shouldn't take such a long time for completion. After all, justice delayed is justice denied."

"We're living on planet earth, my dear"

(After a glance at the paper)
"I think our leaders are forgetting that too. I read somewhere that Mumbai will be submerged within a century."

"One less place for terrorists to strike."

"Seriously, I don't think our government is that wrong about its stand. The West made up this mess. Now they want us to clean it up for them. What do they think we are?(pause). But then again, we too will suffer the effects of global warming and environmental degradation. It is our poor who are going to be affected. We're in this together. I declare this world grossly unfair."

"Welcome back to the real world."

Ai and Chi: The Real Story (or) Love Thy Neighbour

2009-12-08T15:36:00.000+05:30

The story of Ai and Chi is so entangled with myths and propaganda that the Gordian knot would easily pale into insignificance beside it. As can be guessed from the title, Ai and Chi were two neighbouring countries separated by a huge mountain range. That range preserved the peace between two ancient civilizations when aviation technology was not developed. However, now the story has changed, with that very mountain range (or portions of it) becoming the bone of contention between the two.

The two ancient civilizations in their time of glory had good relations with each other. (It is always like that - rich countries have an understanding between them. It is usually when countries become poor that they become restless to have war. ) But there came a time in history when both the countries fell to foreign masters. While Ai had only one colonial power ruling it, Chi was ruled by many - so many that I fear they exceeded Chi's population at the time. Even the neighbouring island country had a portion of the pie that was Chi. Chi was, for the name's sake, ruled by a royal family.

We'll call the ruler of Ai as Bn. Bn, according to a treaty with the remaining colonial powers in Chi decided the boundary of Chi to be surrounding a region called Ti. Ti was a predominantly feudal region, lorded by a religious figure.

Then, as usual, there were freedom struggles in both the countries. Ai had a peaceful political freedom movement and a violent independence. Chi on the other hand was a pseudo-independent country. So we cannot exactly fix its independence day. However, we can consider the abolition of slavery and the establishment of a republic under the Capist group as two major turning points. There was a period of warlordism, finally followed by the establishment of a Commist regime that ruled the country with an Iron Hand. (No idea about the gloves!)

The establishment of Ai (also Pai) as an independent nation and Chi as a Commist regime were two concurrent events (well, almost so!) They were the best of friends. Ai helped Chi tremendously to gain international recognition. It is for this reason that the Aians felt cheated when Chi later declared war on them.

What happened was thus. Ti was always an independent region coming under the religious head I had mentioned earlier. Chi had never a claim over the region. But being quite close to Chi, the region shared many cultural traits with Chi. So Chi declared it had a right over it. Went and conquered it. Ai, though shocked, recognized it eventually; but it ruffled many feathers in Chi when it gave refuge to the religious head in its country.

Then came the war. Chi said that it didn't recognize the border as it was drawn without the consent of the Chians. (Which is true. The border was drawn by the foreign masters of Ai and Chi. But it makes no sense to redraw the border every now and then.) It claimed many regions coming under Ai. Aians, who had always believed in the slogan :"Ai-Chi bhai-bhai" were devastated - in war, I mean. (I guess the Chians took it to be "Ai-Chi bye bye" )

It was treachery of the worst kind, according to Ai. The Aian PM died soon after the war ended. Ai was in shock for many years and the old wounds have not healed till now. I doubt whether they will, ever. Because after the war, the Chian relations with Ai's main enemy Pai skyrocketed. Before the Ai-Chi war, Pai also had a border dispute with Chi and had asked Ai to form a united front against Chi. Ai had rejected the proposal. So much for the (dumb) politicians then!

Ai became a much more sensible country after the war. It realized the need to modernize its army, the necessity of never trusting anyone, especially and particularly its neighbours. And also the hollowness of the idea of "the solidarity of sufferers of imperialism." The Commist party in India split.(Attributed to many different reasons. This was one among them. And in case you don't know, the CDI's official stance was that it supported Chi, though many in the party opposed and even revolted against it. This continues as a black mark in its history even today.)

The border dispute continues till day. The main areas are the Asai Chin and the Aru Pra. There is an actual war going on too, between the media of the two countries. (The height of irresponsibility!) There is a tripartite Cold War between Ai, Pai and Chi. Plus an arms race. Pai and Chi have emerged as great friends. Ai and Chi have, however emerged as two major trading partners. And, as in the real world, it is always economics that dictates international relations, we can forget about a war for the time being.

Moral of the story: If you are a country, forget about loving, never even trust your neighbour!

The Balore Wars

2009-11-14T10:16:00.001+05:30

Though everyone in Ai knew that they were actually ruled by the rich and the powerful, the politicians at least acted as if the Mangoman (a mythical fellow like Shamrock Jolnes or Santa Claus. This fellow was seen only once in five years: at the time of elections.) controlled them. "Whatever they did, it was for the Mangoman. They thought only of him. They worshipped him; would lay down their lives for him."

All this was, however until the Balore wars, which turned out to be a turning point in the history of Ai. The Balore war marked the beginning of naked, shameless display of the power of money in the politics(till then, at least they wore bikinis!). It showed the people what the politicians would have to bear if they turned out to be a wee bit more scrupulous than the Lucifer(I guess Lucifer will now file for defamation!)

Balore was the capital city of Kan. Kan had its name changed once, and Balore too, had its name changed from Balore to Baloru as soon as Yapa was elected as the CM of Kan. Yapa had a lady, Sho as his confidante and she, as is usual is the case with pet ministers, was interfering in the work of all other ministries. Yapa belonged to the XYZ party. It was helped to attain powerby the Rotty brothers, two warlords in Bary. They poured in so much money in the elections that Ganga considered her reputation as the 'Giver of Wealth' gone with the wind that blew. She considered linking with other rivers to put up a united front against all these. After all, the rivers had to bear all the sins of these fellows. They were becoming so polluted nowadays, that instead of being purified, a man was sure to roast in hell if he took a bath in one of the rivers of Ai.

To Rotty brothers, however had not done all this for displacing Ganga. They had understood, like our old Godfather Corleone that political power is equivalent to ten regimes. (The Ambani brothers know this too, though they don't have regimes. And the elder one knows better! ) They were rich and powerful and unlike Ambani brothers, did not fight among themselves. They were as close to each other as Ram and Lakshman were, like Krishna and Balram were but unhappily lacked most of the good qualities of all of the above mentioned rulers and couldn't prevent Lord Indra from pouring out his wrath on the people of Kan. (To be fair, nor was Yapa able to do it. But this is Kaliyuga. Even the holy RXX feels it.)

So Kan was flooded, and the Rotty brothers alleged that it was because of the actions of Yapa and Sho that Lord Indra was angry. They wanted Yapa removed.

Yapa was a fool.(Forgive me for this outburst, but I'll tell you why.) Nobody in his right senses (I wonder whether it was because a politician that he hadn't the 'right' senses!) would go for such an all-out attack on his chief benefactor, his chief patron without considering all options. History is a mute spectator to the debacles of Sangma, Heptuallah, Pawar etc, etc. In these cases, no money was involved; even then the downfalls were spectacular, to say the least. Here, the Mammon was involved too, and so the bets were incredibly against Yapa.

My dear readers let me advice you thus: If you are a politician, and you are in power, never move against those with whom Mammon is pleased. Otherwise you'll have to share the fate of Job.

Power and honesty were never bedfellows. Nor will they be, ever.

The people thought that their CM had gone mad when he said he would tax the Rotty bros and tried to rein in the officials of the Bary district.

What could the Rotty bros do? And oh! what did they do? They struck back with such a vengeance than Medusa would have thought of changing her hairstyle for something better, in case she were living. They laid mines on all the highways the CM was expected to travel.

And what could the CM do? He cried, he wailed for the leadership to help him. But neither the national leaders of XYZ(there were far too many of them. I fear they exceed the population of Gods in India.), nor the RXX, nor his own supporters, not even his community could save him. You see, mines evoke fear in the minds. And Mammon rules the weak!

A thunderbolt, far more damaging than that of Indra, had struck Yapa - that of fate, that of the Rotty brothers!

Now, the XYZ had a famous lady doc, Sush Swa, who was close to the Rotty bros. She had suspected from the beginning that Yapa was actually under some spell cast by Sho. Or else how could a politician have the craziness to be honest in Ai. She fixed some appointments with him and brought in the Rotty brothers as well. Within a week, the war ended with all of them shaking their hands. Sho was removed. Yapa cried. For what, we do not know. Rotty bros were given back the control of Bary. The taxes were withdrawn. They declared victory. There were many small episodes of fierce battles, but they do not matter now.

The whole thing reminds me of Bollywood movies. But alas, this one reads more like one of Chanakya's conquests than Panchatantra.

Yapa and the people learnt the following lessons from this episode:

Politicians are never honest. They can never afford to be so.

Sometimes family dynasties are good. Especially, if you have a Rotty against you - whether it is one of the bros or a son.

You can fight the power of Mammon only if your forefathers were intelligent enough to leave you a legacy of being the unquestioned rulers of the country. Otherwise, you stand no chance.

Never fight against anything openly - neither the Holy Cows nor the Mammon if you want to retain your chair.

And above all,

"Anywhere in the Universe, though political power is derived from the plebeians; in the end, it is the power, and it is only the power, that matters. The concerns of the subjects are always secondary to the pursuit of the power; it doesn't matter if thunder strikes them or typhoons swallow them. The only thing that guides and should guide a politician is the lust for power."

Mangoman smiled at me now.

(Coming up next: "Ai and Chi: The Real Story" or "Love Thy Neighbour")

Structure of the (mis)government: Ai

2009-11-11T12:02:00.002+05:30

Ai was a (namesake) republic. The President was usually called a rubber-stamp. His/her favourite pastimes included gardening, visiting other countries, jumping out of security cauldrons to make news the next day and occasionally sending back bills. Presidents were usually men, and there was a huge jubilation when a woman was made the rubber stamp.(It seems everyone was tired of seeing men being made rubber stamps. According to popular notions, women make better rubber stamps than men.)

Oooh! I forgot that the President had to help the illiterate members of the government read something known as 'oath of secrecy' and 'oath of office'. Now, this could actually be taken in any language, but people usually preferred languages they couldn't understand - so that they'd not have to bear the prick of the conscience (I do not know what the last word actually means: never met a politician wearing that flower.). in case they couldn't keep their oath (which was usually the case).

Ai had a Parliament too, with two houses - one was for the elders: you had to be 90 to qualify. Exceptions were made if you were suffering from the diseases afflicting people belonging to the age group mentioned above. Then there was a 'lower' house. You had to be a criminal or a crorepati (The members of the latter usually belong to the former category) to enter it.

The party with majority in the lower house formed the Cabinet which had a Prime Minister. The PM, as a rule was a highly educated person(to keep up appearances). The ministers were usually goons with a sprinkling of good persons (just like salt: shouldn't be too much).

The members were elected through elections. Now half the population did not know how to read and write and so never voted. Out of the remaining half, about 50% voted if they could find time for that. So the members could be said to be elected by popular vote.

Ai was divided into 25 or 28 or 30-something states and Union Territories which kept changing their names wreaking havoc with Geography textbooks. When they couldn't change their names, they changed the names of their capital cities into something unpronounceable. In case someone opposed this favourite pastime of the state legislatures, goons' associations would force them to apologize. The people were so entertained by all these that their film industry began to suffer.

(Watch out now for the next post: Balore wars)

A country called Ai

2009-11-09T12:01:00.002+05:30

(This is a novel about the destiny of a country called Ai, which was born with grand hopes for the future and grand ambitions. Though it fulfilled many, it failed in a lot too)

Once upon a time, there was a country named Ai. Ai was a developing country with lots of people of many religions, languages, superstitions and political parties. There were two national parties (their EC said there were more; but actually there were only two): ABC and XYZ. There was CDI too, but they can be ignored.

ABC was headed by Lady San, the widow of the former Pres, Sir Ran. Sir Ran's family had ruled the country almost since independence with one or two commercial breaks in between to reduce monotony.

XYZ was a ~~headless~~ party (you know what I mean) whose state leaders had no national appeal and national leaders too had no national appeal - that is, no appeal anywhere in the nation. This was supposed to be controlled by a religious body called RXX, whose main aim was to build a U-no-vat at a place called U-no-vere. This was strongly opposed by the largest minority, Mi. Also, RXX and its other outfits wanted to bring in some rather arcane laws, like deciding what the citizens of Ai should eat, what they(esp, the women of some states) should wear and so on.

The Mi had an uncountable number of organizations, which from time to time issued so many bizarre orders to its followers that many people went crazy reading about them. In fact, it can be said that there was a competition for issuing the most bizarre order between RXX and its outfits on one hand and the Mi organizations on the other. Thankfully the citizens of Ai were intelligent, though not literate(I sometimes wonder whether intelligence and literacy are mutually exclusive. Just look at the re-election of the last U.S President). And so, whenever XYZ was elected to form the government, just like us, it had to form coalitions which meant it could not pass bizarre orders at the behest of RXX.

Oops! All this reads like the description of scenery in some books in which the actual story is buried so deep inside verbose descriptions of all other things in the novel except the actual story that finally the reader has to give up and wait for a review of the book or google out one to actually know what happens(hoping that at least the critic would have had the patience to read it.)

(To be continued in the next post)

Peace and death

2009-11-03T14:51:00.000+05:30

No one seems to agree that death is peace. Death, in my opinion, is the ultimate peace. You have no worries anymore, no bad feelings to hide, no more false pretensions - you cease to exist. Though that sounds like bliss, we are afraid of death (that includes me too). The only person genuinely unafraid of death I have ever seen is my mom. I still remember the scene when she was taken to the operation theater after having a brain haemorrhage. She was damn cool, smiling at me while I could hear my heart pounding against my chest and tears rolling down my cheeks. The surgeon had told her that she stood a good chance of not coming out of that room alive - yet she was unafraid. That is true bravery - you are unafraid to meet your Maker. That takes real guts.

Thanks to the surgeons and the hospital staff, I got my mom back. My only regret about the whole thing is that I couldn't meet the surgeons who carried out the operation. I'd love to tell them how grateful I am to them - for giving me back the most wonderful, the bravest person I have met on this earth.

And of course, to God for the great favours He keeps on giving me in spite of my inherent wickedness! ;-)

Dead people are generally considered lucky as they have escaped most of the responsibilities waiting for them. This is especially true for young men and women who die. I don't know how true that is, however. This world, though not exactly heaven, is a great place to live in. It is like a blank book God has given us to write our story in. In most cases, you get to write whatever you want to. It is a great game. In fact, it is the Game.

Suicides are altogether another matter. I have still not understood why people commit suicide. There still remains life no matter how deep you have let yourself sink. You can always redeem yourself. All that it takes is courage - moral courage and not the physical courage. In fact that kind of courage is the difference between the truly great and the rest.

P.S: There is a great discussion on whether suicides are to be decriminalised. In my opinion, a person who is driven to commit suicide will already be in the depths of desperation. What such a person needs is someone to tell him that life is not about running away but fighting till the last breath. Putting such a person in the prison is actually a crime against humanity. Such persons should undergo counselling. All help must be provided to bring such persons back to life. For, we do not know, what he/she may actually turn out to be if reformed.

Death is peace alright, but a rather eerie one. I prefer a war to it - and a grand one at that.

Life is war

2009-10-31T09:32:00.000+05:30

Dreams of mine have left me
To the darkness in my soul
Never have I found peace
Restless I've been, for years
Since my birth I searched around
For that elusive illusion
Of peace; but never found it
I feel now that it is a mirage
Peace can never be
For struggle is life
Every movement of life
Is a struggle; though we aim at peace
Life draws life into the vortex
Of a never ending struggle
Believing peace is at the end
But never reaches it
Peace is just an illusion, a mirage
For peace is death
And life is war

Random incoherence

2009-10-31T09:24:00.000+05:30

I'm the laziest student at the Academy - this is what my friends there feel about me. I'm the quintessential backbencher there. Vanishing into thin air when a Professor whom I do not like comes to take class has become a hobby of mine. I sit near the door, just in case...

Then comes the issue of my notes. I've got the full notes of the subjects I like most. Sociology, my first option, is my favourite. I can't help marveling at the subject - so comprehensive, so vague, so logical and still so dumb at the same time. Maybe that is because it is the study of the man and the society.

The funniest part of it is when we study about the psychologists' views on man - specifically Sigmund Freud. Loved the guy - never knew we were all so 'perverted'. Well, pervert is a wrong usage - you can't blame fellows for the chemical reactions in their brains, right?

I've got an agreement with one of my classmates, who has Sociology as her second option. At the end of this course, she'll give me notes of all the classes I bunked, and I'll give her my Sociology notes. Now that is what 'social contract' actually means. Ending 'the condition of despair' to enjoy the fruits of life.

Read recently somewhere that the most confusing fact about man is that this warlike species, doubtful of anything and everything under the sun, came to trust their own members to create what we know as societies. Everyday we trust others to fulfill our needs. Talk about the giant leap of trust!

What an incoherent post! Still, this is the way I think. Sometimes, you just have to go with the flow. Listen to what your inner self says unto you - to find that elusive inner peace we've been searching for centuries.

Life is funny

2009-10-10T22:38:00.000+05:30

For the past two days I have read news headlines about some 'waves', got two or three e-mails requesting me to send the senders an invite if I am on the wave. And I was wondering what was wrong with the world. A U.S President gets a Nobel Prize just a few months after swearing in, the lit prize goes to someone totally unheard of. And people are talking about 'waves' instead of serious issues.

It was only today that I read about the 'wave' in detail. And I'm dying for an invite now. It is cool - to have conversations. for collaboration and doing any group-work in the world. Kudos to Google for thinking such a thing up. Now that I think of it, I just wonder why people had taken such a long time to hit upon this idea!

P.S: If you have received an invite, please send me one too!

Smoking life away

2009-10-02T16:51:00.001+05:30

I have finally decided to get fit for the umpteenth time. However, unlike previous times, this was MY decision, which probably means that I am going to lose weight. I walk five kilometers everyday now and it feels really good. I really feel free - some kind of happiness I have never felt over the years and there is a huge bonus too - most of my old favourites are getting back into the wardrobe from the almirah I used to dump them in when they grew too small for me. In fact it feels like heaven.

The only problem I face is this - every day I walk, I find more people smoking in public places. And I'll bet that the number is increasing, and increasing rapidly. Thankfully, smoking in public is not back to the level of the pre-ban days. Still it can be easily verified that people have started ignoring the law, even if it is only a small minority of them.

Educating the masses is not really a great way to stop the people from smoking. It is addictive. Once you get the habit, it is difficult to kick the habit. You cannot ask the addicts to quit smoking simply because it 'kills' them. The people have tougher hides now and it would require a diamond blade to make a scratch on those! If all people behaved perfectly rationally, this planet would be having a different name. A lot of my classmates smoked, knowing well the ill-effects of smoking. It is the danger that accompanies the cigarette and the tobacco that makes it more alluring to people. And ours is the most insane species nature ever produced. Our name should've been Homo Eccentrica or something like that.

So smokers will not easily quit. The best thing we can now do is to politely tell the people who smoke in public places: "My dear sir, I appreciate that you have chosen to commit suicide and I, as a fellow being, fully agree that a person such as you who chose bravely not to understand commonsense, deserves an early death, as you will soon know; but I request you not to harm other fellow beings who are doing no harm to you (and that includes me.)"

How will that be?

About Manusmriti

2009-09-28T10:41:00.000+05:30

I had bought a copy of Manusmriti from a second hand book dealer at Pattom. Thought it would be nice to read what the fuss is all about. This book has got a very 'good' reputation in India. Routinely ridiculed and defended, it is one of the most quoted books when it comes to discrimination against women and the oppressed classes.

The book, I found, after reading a few verses, was quite boring. It essentially emphasized on the supremacy of Brahmins. Then there are a lot of do's and don'ts - most of them alright, quite a few humorous and some of them really outrageous. One of the odd ones:

"A King is as sinful as a butcher who owns 10,000 butcher shops. One should not accept anything from a king who is not right."(Ahem!)

This one really takes the cake:

"One should not look at one's wife while she eats."

And another one:

"One should never beat anyone other than one's own son or disciple." (What about daughters?)

Of course, everyone knows the more famous ones.
W
The important point to note is, this book has enough good points about it too. While disparaging the book, many people forget this fact. One should take into account the good things about anything too.

In fact, I would love to read about what the Indian society was like, before Manu wrote this book. Was one's caste really decided at birth? Or was it acquired? Did woman really have a higher status in the country at any point of time? If so, what caused it? How did some women come to be educated in open defiance of Manu's instructions?

And how did Manusmriti and caste system stand the test of time for so long?

Nightmares

2009-09-21T12:31:00.000+05:30

I am having nightmares in my sleep for the past two weeks. Terrible ones. The first one was a long story of three ghosts trying to kill my sis and me. This came in about three episodes. That was pretty exciting though I remember only parts of the show. Then my brain decided to change the channels. Right now, I watch an unknown force trying to kill a powerful lady. I am in danger,too. I have got psychic powers to tell the lady when she might be in danger. So, the lady, (I never knew such a person in real life) never lets me get out of her sight though we both are not really great chums. I play a scum character in this nightmare. In the last episode, that unknown force was following me after I had ditched the lady and was running for my life. I have no idea how this is going to end.

I found the following facts to be very interesting:
1. I think perfectly logically, almost cold-bloodedly in the dream.
2. Unlike my other nightmares, this force (and the ghosts, too) could be fooled.

Can anyone tell me why on earth I am having dreams which are episodic in nature? I don't believe in the warning crap, and would be obliged if someone can give me a rational explanation.

Nothing to do.

2009-09-21T11:52:00.000+05:30

Days like these are characterised by an indescribable sadness that threatens to overflow my heart and drag me down to the depths of an unfathomable trench of depression. Not that I have ever sunk that deep but the threat is sometimes quite enough to pull me out of my characteristic inertia into life back again. The biggest fear in my life is that I may run out of aims. Not that I may burn out. I may get bruised, broken, but hey, what else is life for, other than falling down, getting wounded, but getting up still and keep treading on the path which you have chosen. The greatest feeling in the world is the one you have while you are working hard to attain your aim. Not even the joy you have when you succeed can match it. This is because, life suddenly feels empty once you have achieved what you have wanted. Unless you settle some other goal for yourself. Isn't it?

Whom are they fooling?

2009-09-19T13:12:00.000+05:30

The austerity drive of the Congress is the worst gimmick in the entire political history of the country. Anyone can see through it. Do the fellows who wrote the script for this dumb drama think that we are as dumb as they are? So Mrs. G flew in cattle class and the young Prince went by train. Did anyone bother to find out what that might have actually cost the poor taxpayer?

Mr. Tharoor's comments provided some comic relief, finally. But instead of taking it in the right sense, the sycophants' association goes crazy thinking that poor Mr. T had referred to Mrs. G and the young Prince. Only the PM showed some sense. Dear PM, I request you to ask your ministers to buy a dictionary each. Don't worry about austerity. You can get a good dictionary for less than five hundred rupees; and it will save your ministers a lot of time - they wouldn't have to comment on jokes.

Mrs. G and dear Prince, if you want to retain the young India with you, don't touch Tharoor.

Earthquake in the city

2009-09-18T20:05:00.000+05:30

I was lying in my bed, resting after a really tiring day, when the bed suddenly started shaking. I jumped out of it. There was a heavy downpour outside and I thought that it might have been a really heavy lightning. Though that was odd, I didn't give much thought to it till all the FM stations started declaring that we had an earthquake in the city. As far as I read, it seems the entire city was affected. The radio stations are advising people not to panic. They are also telling the listeners what to do in case the condition gets really serious. Guess I will have to be really careful in the coming days.

Ratings

2009-09-12T12:14:00.000+05:30

The broadcast industry is going to regulate itself - all programmes, including the ads shown in between are to be rated U, U/A and A. I believe all news shows are going to be A by default. Ditto for all the serials. Only the family welfare ministry's ads are going to get U certification. But who watches them? This is just a ploy to grab eyeballs by granting A certificate to all programmes and a roundabout way to get social acceptance for all the bitchy programmes in the teevee.

Where's the remote?

Has anybody ever checked out the 'Most Popular' section of Yahoo! India. At least 25% of the content is a month old. I am tired of still seeing the Rakhi Sawant swayamwar, Madonna's waking up etc in that page for the umpteenth time. I can't bring myself to believe that we are still reading those things. All other sites are religiously updated. This is really atrocious! Who's in charge of that page?

Congratulations to the Indian cricket team for making it to the top finally. I will worship all the team members religiously till we lose the next match. Then I'll throw banana peels at you.

Also congratulations to Vijender Singh and Pankaj Advani! Good to see some good news from sports other than the obvious one.

The most comical comment I've heard recently: 'Italians want to be like me'

No points for guessing who said it. Still, the guy remains popular!!! No wonder Obelix said:

ils sont fous, ces romains!

(They are mad, those Romans!)

And in a lighter vein

2009-09-11T10:44:00.000+05:30

I am feeling terrible after writing three posts on really serious topics. Maybe being vegan makes you intellectual.

Yesterday I ate fish again after a long break. So feeling really happy now. (The Omega-3 fatty acid in small fishes triggers neural centres to make the eater happy, according to some research. Bah!)

Om Prakash and Rajesh, two goondas somehow involved in the Paul M George murder case have surrendered and have been remanded. Now, this fellow Om Prakash is a really handsome guy and the newspapers can't ever get enough of his photos. Last year, the same thing happened when Sabarinath, a grafter was caught. (Take the American meaning!) He looked more like a scientist than a swindler and we were treated daily to his photos.

Rajesh has the real look of a goon and so we don't see his photos much. That's sad. He should file a case against the media for discrimination.

A lady goonda (what an oxymoron!) Shobha John, merely on account of being not beautiful enough and being too shrewd has been dumped by them.The actual face of Thatha (not her actual name), a trafficker in women was not shown even once. And you talk about equality of women. This cruel, cruel world!

Amen to male chauvinism! Amen to the great Indian patriarchy!

Thought I'd stop there, but there was a really interesting article about an Innova car getting a fancy number for an abysmally small amount at an auction. Now there was also a report about a private Innova car receiving police protection as it followed a minister's car. And I am a tube light.

When the Unique ID mission really starts working (I see nothing else other than news reports and occasional intervies with Mr. NN to remind me of its existence) and if I have enough dough in my hands, will I be able to buy the number I like? Or is it going to be like the scratch coupon where you have to scratch out a shining metallic coat with a fifty paise coin of 2.0 cm diameter to get my number?

Mera number kab aayega?

Austerity (Akbar vs Auragzeb) and global warming

2009-09-11T09:31:00.000+05:30

From now on, the Cabinet ministers will shun five star hotels, travel economy class, eat only chappati and dal, wear khadi clothes they themselves spun and will live in huts. With their Z+ security. That means we won't get budget hotel rooms to stay in anymore (Security of the ministers), no air tickets, inflation goes up and huts will become the latest fashion statement. Come on, Mr. Prime Minister, we are not bothered about any of these things. I don't care whether you stay in Taj or Ritz, I wouldn't even bother if you chartered a plane for each one of your ministers. As long as you do your work. We Indians are quite tolerant of these excesses. Remember Akbar. He had quite lavish a life, yet is called Akbar the Great whereas the poor Aurangzeb who lived on the money he earned by spinning clothes comes nowhere near. He is the villain of Indian history. Learn from history, dear fellows! We prefer an Akbar to an Aurangzeb any day. At least a vast majority of us.

Something more about politics. Japan is going to have a new Prime Minister, Mr. Yukio Hatoyama. He belongs to the Democratic Party of Japan, which will come into power in the later half of this month. His party beat the Liberal Democrats which had been ruling the country for an astounding 54 years. The PM-elect promises to cut Japan's greenhouse gas emissions by 25 per cent by around 2020 from 1990 levels.

What is our government doing? Global warming and greenhouse gases are not problems that are going to affect the people who created them alone. The entire humanity is at stake. Why does Indian and Chinese governments make such a hell of a noise when we are asked to cut down emissions. Yes, it is true that we have low per capita emission but our contribution in destroying this rock we call home in galactic parlance is becoming too significant to be ignored. India contributes about 5% of the global greenhouse emissions, according to the data compiled in 1994. We have come a long way since then. So our contribution naturally should be quite larger than the original 5% now. We need to be careful now.

The global warming is not going to spare India out of sheer benevolence. We are going to be affected too, most probably more than many other countries as we have a large section of our population who are so poor that they can't afford two square meals a day. A majority of the population work in agriculture and related industries. And global warming is going to hit farming very, very hard. Our food production is going to go down but the population will increase (unless the Centre takes a cue from the TN government and gives everyone TVs. ;-) ). And in spite of the fact that agriculture is now becoming a backup engine for the economy (Services:54%, industrial:29% and agriculture:17%) we will go down without a fight if the farming sector is hit too hard.

So what do we do? The thing is we are starting industries anyway and most of them, for the sake of reducing the initial investment required, go for outdated (read more polluting) technology than the new (read less polluting). We need our government to take steps to ensure that the entrepreneurs and the industrialists find the latter more profitable than the former. Companies like Suzlon must be promoted by giving them more incentives. The government after all has a duty to its citizens - if not anything else, we must at least have clean air to breathe and tolerably clean water to drink. Legislation for placing the industries under a tighter rein will have to brought in some day. The outdated factories will have to be scrapped then. So why not build them to be more efficient and less polluting, even if it costs a little more dough in the beginning?

We will have to make amends one day. Why not start doing it right away so that the transition will be less of a problem for everyone? It will pay rich dividends in the long run. China is already taking steps to curb its pollution level. We will have a real advantage in the long run if we start now. Our emissions are only a quarter of China's.

We will be doing our poor brethren a favour. It is common knowledge that the poor in India are subsidising the emissions of the upper and the middle classes. We owe it to the nation and its people.

Of hotel suites and food crises

2009-09-09T18:13:00.000+05:30

Mr. S.M.Krishna and Mr. Tharoor, both from the MEA were asked to vacate their five star suites. While Mr. Tharoor claims to have paid the bill from his own pocket, we have no such comment from Mr. Krishna.

I do not bother whether they stay in five star suites or in the guest houses. At the rate at which Chinese influence is growing, I don't think they will be ministers for long. I hope I will see one really good external affairs minister before I die. This is one of my greatest wishes: India puts someone with a real idea of how the things are in the MEA.

Our dear old Prime Minister says we need not worry about the food crisis - we have plenty of food in the FCI godowns. Yes, we have thousands of tonnes of rotting rice and wheat grains in the godowns. But of what use that is, when the poor do not have enough money to buy the food? Hunger in India is now not due to scarcity of food - it is due to abject poverty of a vast section of people. The prices of food items have shot up meteorically in the past couple of months. What is the government doing? Other than banning export of some food items according to its whims and fancies, nothing has been done. Or I have been sleeping. I just wish we had a general election every four years. Or the right to recall the elected representatives.

I wouldn't blame the Ministry of Agriculture. It is doing a lot of work, at least in paper. Their plans read more like a kindergarten student's daydreams than anything that can be realised. Unless farmers are made aware of the schemes that benefit them, unless they are given the freedom to decide the crop they want to cultivate in their land, we cannot hope to maintain our buffer stocks forever. The FCI is not an Akshayapathra. Nor are our farmers magicians who can pull rabbits out of empty hats.

Meanwhile, lobbying for the post of AP Chief Minister continues. After seeing the rest of the contenders, I am finding it quite tempting to support the son's cause. Ah! That my country has reached this state!

The latest from the saga of RSS-BJP love story:

VHP has finally realised that the BJP leader Mr. L.K. Advani used the Ram Mandir issue for his political gain. (Did this jagaran come out of chinthan and manthan after the election?) This thunderbolt of a realisation belongs to the same category as the one someone named Siddhartha had some millenia ago. Now we need an emperor to sponsor a stupa to mark the spot where the VHP attained this knowledge. Unfortunately, Mayawati is no longer allied with BJP. Otherwise, she could have easily built one along with her statues.

Now Mr. Singhal, how about contacting Mr. Modi?

A boring life

2009-09-08T12:28:00.000+05:30

My life is progressing from being boring to being mega boring. There is no news worth reading in the newspapers. They are becoming so predictable that I can predict the news for the next week. I have stopped watching TV as I find that daydreaming is a more interesting option.

And thanks to the zoology professor at the academy, I am developing a small aversion to meat. Thankfully, he doesn't talk much about fish; I do not know how I will ever live without it. I will have to start thinking about bunking the zoology classes. Otherwise, I stand the huge risk of losing my 'personality'.

Well, in spite of all the opinions I have expressed till now, I find some interesting news articles like:

As usual, we are keeping quiet though China is grabbing our land. (I don't understand why China has to do this. Reminds me of the biblical tale of David and Bethsheba.) Mr. Krishna has even said that Sino-Indian border is among the most peaceful borders in the world. Yeah, we'll sleep on that. For now. Till another Kargil-like scenario comes up. But if it is going to be against China, you know which side to bet on, right?

Then there is the great Indian family drama about finding the successor to YSR. The way in which the MLAs finally turned up to retake their oaths as ministers was hilarious. I do not know how everything is going to turn out. Truth, as Mark Twain said, is more of a stranger than fiction. In the same way, Andhra politics is stranger than Hindi serials. (Heard Ramalinga Raju had a cardiac arrest. Why?)

Another case of faking of 'encounter death' from Gujrat. I have now decided to put no limit to my imagination when it comes to 'How atrocious police can be?' They kill innocent human beings for getting promotion, huh? These fellows ought to be shot at sight.

Our dear old Prime Minister has suddenly found out to his shock that the rate of conviction in cases of atrocities against SCs and STs is abysmally low. It seems that I read more newspaper articles than him about the matter.

About BJP. I do not know where to begin. It now looks like a China shop run over by a very very active bull. First it was Advani, then came Jaswant Singh with many small volcanic eruptions in between. The Vasundhara Raje episode makes particularly fascinating reading. Somebody ought to make a serial or a movie out of it. (Writing a book and getting it banned by a state government too is a good idea.) I forget who the current player is.

But the most comical of all is the investigation of the Paul M George murder case by the Kerala police. Someone has already started making a movie on it. You should read the actual newspaper reports to see how hilariously bizzare the investigation is. The latest episode was the revelation of a blacksmith that the murder weapon seized from the house of one of the suspects in the case was made by him at the behest of a Police officer. When asked to comment on it, someone from the department said that such tricks were routine as the murderers often destroy the weapons used!

I find that life is not so boring, after all!

G.P of death

2009-09-05T09:44:00.000+05:30

It was a tragic news I found on the net after abstaining from it for a day: YSR's chopper had crashed. I believe that he was a great politician (when compared to the rest) who did a lot of good things for the poor in Andhra. In fact I was glad that the number of suicides in the Telengana region was coming down finally. The newspaper reports, though quite rare, made heart-wrenching stories. So YSR's death was, for me, a tragedy.

Still, looking at the newspaper reports now, "124 people die due to YSR's death", I feel quite ashamed. The newspapers are going quite overboard. And they have the nerve to report such absurdities too!

And then there is the succession battle. I personally feel that his son should not be made the CM. He should prove himself at first. This politics of dynasties is wearing my patience away(though I never understand why others are not getting tired of it!)

Lies, damned lies and ....

2009-08-28T12:53:00.000+05:30

So Mr. Advani, our former Home Minister says he knew nothing about the release of the terrorists till he found out from the newspapers? I'll need all the salt in the world to gulp that down. Does he think that all the 108 crore Indians are asses? That we have no commonsense? For God's sake, he was the Home Minister then - a minister who was the second-in-command in the Cabinet! How could anyone release the terrorists without his consent? This shows him in very bad light. Either he should confess that he has lied or consult a physician for curing his amnesia.

It is not Mr. Advani alone who is making really confusing statements. Mr. Santaram, a nuclear scientist stated that our Pokhran experiment was not so successful; a statement that has since been rubbished by the rest of the nuke establishment. Now it would be interesting to see who is right. However, I doubt if they will release the documents regarding the experiment.

The next story that made the most amusing reading was the one about a 'love-affair' between late Benazir Bhutto and Imran Khan. Vehemently denied by all sides, this story still captured my imagination. Both look dashing, are brave and beautiful/handsome and life would have been more interesting if they had married. I personally have no great opinion of Sardari or the 'Government' of Pakistan. Everyone knows that it is actually the military that holds the reigns there. Who is bothered whether it is a Bhutto or a Sardari or a Khan or anyone who wears the puppet crown there?

The 'Khan frisk' issue refuses to die out with the actor threatening to frisk a particular lady when she comes to India. My dear fellow, the fellows at the airport authority only wanted some revenge for the over-emotional acting you do. At times I have really wanted to kill the directors who made these movies - which break into a song-and-dance sequence in the most inexplicable situations. I demand that all the actors of these movies be frisked at all the airports - foreign and Indian; and that all the directors who make such movies be handed over to the Salwa Judum till they start making sensible movies.

A better move might be banning the songs, now that we are planning to ban reality-shows, books and all the stuff you can possibly ban. After that you can ban the elections, ask women to wear veils and stay at home. Then you can pass laws to whiplash anyone who doesn't subscribe to your view of morality. You can also ban appeals - so that we end up like some of the nations in the Middle East.

Of all the people I do not like, the worst are those who think that great infrastructure can make up for the loss of individual freedom. I don't care whether I live in a jungle - as long as I am free to do what I want.

There is nothing more glorious than a free bird soaring high.

Life as a 'swine flu' patient

2009-08-24T09:44:00.000+05:30

My troubles started a week ago. To cut a long story short, I was rather lax about my companions in the bus (I didn't have much choice), my food and my habits in general and so developed all the symptoms they give in the newspaper ads regarding swine flu. Now, I should have been more careful, but I thought that it was only my tonsils giving trouble again. I rushed to the clinic I usually visit, and they told me that they didn't treat patients suffering from fever. I told them that I only had a sore throat. My fever was too mild then; I didn't even feel it. The nurse there checked and told me that I had fever; a mild one though: 99.4 F. I was scared I would be turned out. Luckily, I wasn't. The doctor whom I was asked to consult was not my usual doctor. The old one is a lady in the real sense of the word and she used to explain to me, every time, what my disease was, and what medicines I should take, and why I should take them. She was quite busy then and that was the reason why I was sent to this other doctor.

Now, this new doc seemed more worried than me about my disease. I tried to convince her that it was only my tonsillitis creating trouble again - I am supposed to avoid all cold food, but I generally believe that exceptions were the rule for me with regards to this advice. She checked my pressure and noted it to be 80/100. The pulse was normal. But the pressure reading sent a chill into my heart. My cousin had died only a few weeks back due to a cardiac arrest preceded by a low pressure condition. My dad's cousin too had died rather inexplicably, but now we have come to the conclusion that it was the result of lung infection. Anyway, this situation was rather annoying - I wasn't feeling really that sick - no dizzy head and I was thinking pretty logically all the time. I was sure that the doctor had made a spelling mistake but I did not ask her - she seemed so worried when I told her that my stomach had been upset for the past two days and that I was recovering form it. Finally she gave me the prescription I wanted - an antibiotic, the usual Vitamin B Complex capsules and a new one - an iodine solution for gargling.

Gargling with the iodine solution was a novel experience, to say the least. I was asked to make a 1:1 mixture of the iodine solution with water. I found this solution to be a rather alarming violetish brown colour and adding water didn't improve its appearance much. Besides,as my sis remarked: It smelt like toilet lotion. To pour it in my mouth was a bit disgusting but I did it.

Well, the condition of my throat began to improve. I began to eat 'normal' food as I was to eat the dreaded antibiotic. I was surviving purely on ORS for the past two days.

The antibiotic was one of a kind - eat one and you'll find yourself too weak to move out of the bed for two days. The course ends only today and I still cannot keep my eyelids open.

I made mom and dad buy bread, oranges and all the 'healthy' foodstuffs that doctors normally recommend - and stayed away from my normal diet. (I won't give you the particulars but I assure you that mom strongly disapproves of it.)

That evening my aunt called and mom told her the particulars of my disease. My aunt got worried. Seems a person nearby had died after having the same symptoms as I had. She got so worked up that my parents decided to take a second opinion. I agreed. I was rather worried about the 100 part of my BP reading.

This time I was taken to a hospital - as soon as dad told the lady at the reception counter that I had fever and sore throat, she rushed me into the Casualty. All the people there were wearing the famous N95 masks and looking at me with such pity that I almost read my obituary in my mind. At first my BP was checked. Then the doc asked me about my symptoms. Then they grew a bit more worried and they checked my BP for the second time. This time, I got really worried. Why the hell were they checking my BP for the second time? I showed them the earlier prescription. The doc nodded approvingly and asked me to complete the course. She gave an additional prescription for two more medicines - one for cold and the other for fever. I was back home after the doc told me to rest for two days and get admitted in the General Hospital if the condition worsened. That was the laughable part; I knew of the opinion the General Hospital has in the minds of my parents. Mind you, it is not because of the incompetency of the doctors, it is only that the institution is too crowded given our burgeoning population and the disinterest of the government in improving the basic facilities.

The doctors in public hospitals suffer a lot - the government and the public expect too much of them - they are made to suffer when people suffer, but their salaries are well below par. It is a pretty pathetic situation for them.

Two days later I found from the newspaper that the antibiotic I was taking was the one to be prescribed for people with mild swine flu.

I had no problems during daytime, but I was really scared during night. I knew that this disease - I had heard too many stories about it, and I knew that none of them was an exaggeration - was a really unpredictable one. I slept with my mobile phone in the bed - just in case I couldn't cry out if the condition became really serious and allotted the speed dials. I knew that I had trouble in breathing. My sis had recorded the sound I made while breathing - a moaning, wailing type of sound. One night when my mom slept in my room to make sure I was alright, she used to wake me after every few hours to ask me why I was wailing - she was pretty scared too.

Thankfully, I have a great love for life and God is kind enough to me; though I do not know how to thank Him for being so gracious to such a wicked person that I am. I took my medicines in time without complaint, gargled with that iodine solution (my throat pricked a lot after that) and ate the food that was given without a murmur. (If I had been in the position of my mom, I'd have remarked that I was a far better girl when I was sick than when I was healthy.) So now I am, quite cheerful after a week of the wicked flu, suffering from a minor cough and a cold, barred from going out lest I infect others or worsen my own condition.

I was sort of a VIP all these days. I got all I wanted and save the scolding I received from mom whenever she found me reading Sherlock Holmes for the umpteenth time, I have nothing to complain about. I am really grateful to the doctors who treated me, my parents and my sis who cared for me, my relatives and friends who inquired after me everyday and above all to the God Almighty who saves me whenever I am in trouble. Where would I be, but for Him?

God bless us all!

Much ado about nothing

2009-08-17T09:11:00.000+05:30

King Khan was forced to face an 'ordeal' at the Newark airport. Quite naturally, most of the newspapers today have this news as their headlines : "I don't feel like stepping on U.S soil: Shah Rukh." Can't blame him. I'd have felt the same way if I had been treated that way. Luckily, I am not a Khan and I do not think I'll be going to the Newark airport in my lifetime. If I get a chance, I guess I'll try to skip it.

Another main news article was: Anil Ambani visits Guruvayoor temple in Kerala. A nice photo was given by the side of the article which was essentially about the royal reception given to the younger Ambani by the members of the Devaswom board.

Then there was also an article about our Home Minister watching the World Badminton Championship in the conspicuous absence of NSG commandos. Another one about a really controversial lady going shopping in the national capital. And many more such articles which had no right to be in the paper.All this after devoting about 30% of the space for the advertisement. (Can't blame them. After all, the newspapers may become unaffordable otherwise.) This is the case of a typical newspaper in India.

Do I care whether the Home Minister watched the World Badminton Championship or the World Boxing Championship? If the lady goes shopping, can't reporters let her do that peacefully and leave us also in peace? We are customers and we demand full value for our money. Not the crap you publish in about 70% of the space. Why do they think newspaper subscriptions are going down all over the world? The readers get the latest news round the clock, without any interruption, on the net. They get what they want to read - and not what the newspapers dictate.

After publishing all that, I believe that the newspapers have no right to criticize the stars they made about their behaviour. You are the ones who made them.

The Jinnah Fans Association

2009-08-16T18:43:00.000+05:30

At first, it was Mr. Advani. Now it is Mr. Jaswant Singh. Jinnah is rising from his ashes, like a Phoenix, to haunt Indian politics. What more will we get to hear in the coming days? Mr. Singh's interview with Mr. Thapar was a revelation. I never knew that a political leader cares that much about a minority community in India. I know Congress doesn't care but at least it puts up a show to that effect. The BJP, unabashedly doesn't care and unapologetically announces it. This sudden love for Jinnah in the minds of BJP leaders perplexes me. Perhaps, they admire the man. He could do what they could not. Carve out a nation for him to rule. After all, an Islamic Republic of Pakistan was created that follows the laws of Sharia, not a Hindu Republic of Bharat that followed Manusmriti.

I do not think that Gandhi or Nehru were saints. Nor do I think that Jinnah was a demon. Nevertheless, I believe that all three of them, besides all the leaders then, should be held responsible for the partition. They were not saints, and I do not find any point in portraying them as such. They were human beings, like you and me. They thought their decision to be the right one - as we think ours are. They could not foresee the future. Nor can we be sure of what would have happened if there had been no partition. So it is pretty pointless to discuss the past when we have a bright future in front of us. Which brings me to the question:

Why on earth am I writing this?

...some are more equal...

2009-08-15T13:52:00.000+05:30

APJ Abdul Kalam being frisked at an airport created a huge controversy though the former President had no problem with it. Our leaders cry hoarse when their Z+ security cover is withdrawn though they actually do not require it. Our cricket players need special treatment from the anti-doping agencies to protect their privacy. We put up with the preferential treatment being given to the 'more equal' among us. Who said that 'All men are born equal'?

Happy Independence Day to all.

This one really takes the cake.

2009-08-14T18:17:00.000+05:30

I read a very interesting news article now. It is the funniest thing I have ever read and I believe it to be the work of some prankster. It should have been saved for the next April first but I guess he was not in a mood to wait till then. I ought to warn you that all Malayalis are going to find this hilariously funny. This is the article:

Kerala receives threat of multiple bomb blasts

Fri, Aug 14 11:03 AM

Kannur (Kerala) Aug 14 (IANS) The cyber police cell in Kerala has traced an e-mail threat from the United Arab Emirates, warning of widespread bomb blasts in the state, if a separate Muslim state, comprising districts of north Kerala, is not created.

Speaking to IANS, inspector general of police Tomin J. Thachenkery said Friday that the e-mail was received Thursday at a few media offices.

'We immediately began our work and found that the mail is from United Arab Emirates based Etisalat and the domain is that of Yahoo. Since a first information report is required to trace out the IP of the computer, a case has been registered here at the Kannur Town police station.'

He added that the e-mail was written by Zakhir Hussain who claims to be the head of the newly formed Malabar Mujahid which has its headquarters in Karachi and has support from ISI (Inter-services intelligence) of Pakistan and LeT (Lashkar-e-Toiba).

'If their demand for a separate Muslim state is not met, then bombs will be deployed across the state and for that they have already shipped seven kilograms of RDX. The first of the series of bomb blasts will begin with a sample one today (Friday), being the Independence Day of Pakistan,' said the letter, according to Thachenkery.

Following the e-mail, the state has been put on high alert and instructions have gone to all district headquarters to remain vigilant.

Indo Asian News Service

Raising the standards

2009-08-14T17:25:00.000+05:30

I got a mail from a reader that my blog was maintaining an average level. Well, as for me, I think it is well below that. I wrote pure nonsense in most of the entries. Instead of writing about the things I really wanted to write about, I have always focused on totally irrelevant things, fearing censure. I will admit that I am a very insecure person. I fear that I will be misunderstood. So I cloak myself with a show of joviality. I show respect to people I have nothing but contempt for. I dare not call a spade a spade - I am far too sensible for that. Still, sometimes you receive a jolt that makes you sit down and evaluate your life and deeds. The mail which I mentioned above was one such jolt. The first reaction was: "Oh my God! How dare this fellow convey this obvious fact to me knowing that I will be obviously offended?" I sincerely appreciate that fellow's candidness and his nerve in doing that. If we had more people like him, the humanity would have vanished long ago, leaving behind a really peaceful earth!

That shock was followed by an introspection - something I avoid because they are actually very painful. I know that I suppress my opinions and emotions heavily. I want peace around me more than anything else and I know that this is true for most of the people around me.

I have a split personality - one, a jovial, foolish person you must have seen in most of the earlier posts, and another one, a dark, too intellectual, too sharp face that I normally do not show outside. Sometimes, I do wonder which one actually controls me. I love to be the second person all the time but I also fear and mistrust it.

So much for all the dark writing. I believe I am getting too bookish to be read. So we will now discuss some very serious issues: Necessity of a Common Civil Code in India and revamping of foreign policy.

I hereby declare that I neither support nor accept the BJP ideology. I am vehemently against its chauvinistic platform. I also declare that I believe that I am a human first and an Indian next. Any other consideration comes only after that. I also believe in the equality of all human beings.

I want to state that the Personal Laws governing the citizens of India need to be scrapped. A Common Civil Code applicable to all the citizens must be introduced instead. This code must be based on common sense and rational beliefs. It is really unbecoming of this democracy to be treating its citizens differently, on the basis of their religion. It is irrational, illogical; that is to say, it defies all explanation. It is high time that our leaders really gather all the nerve they have and work on this issue.

I know that a Common Civil Code is a dream - a dream that may never come true in my lifetime though I can call myself young.

The second thing I demand is that the government act fast on its foreign policy. Chinese influence is growing by leaps and bounds all over the world. They are using all the means they can - both economic and diplomatic whereas we are floundering at whatever we do. Africa is leaning heavily to China. We sit here, doing practically nothing when compared to what the Chinese are doing. When will we get our act together?

We should try to resolve the problems we have with our neighbours. After all, we cannot choose them. When the PM is making efforts to ensure peace in the subcontinenet, I believe that the people must support him. Hostility with neighbours is quite costly. We are already heavily affected by the global economic recession. Why create more problems for ourselves? Why should people make such a hue and cry over the Baloch part of the Sharm-El-Sheikh statement? We said that we are not doing anything to promote the Baloch movement. What's wrong with that? Needless arguments over a pointless issue; just to show we are good at it.