Independence Day!?

Yet another one of them are here. 65th it's being called this time.

What does this day mean to us now? It's a National Holiday for one. It's a day when kids on the traffic signals get a break from begging and get to sell those little tricolors (possibly bulk made in China) to put up on our vehicles, so that we can show to ourselves and others that we are enjoying this day and took a notice of it.

It's that day when children who get to go to schools, have to sing the National Anthem, and get a couple of laddoos, and then it's half day at school. Yeah there is also that big speech at the Red Fort, which is supposed to replace the morning show, and act as an ironical depiction of India (as in the Person on the dais makes it look like it's a great place to live in, and that things are going well). Well, now there is also the new trend of FB posts and Tweets about The Day. Since the law has changed some people even take the day to wear clothes featuring the tricolor.

Talking of emotions this day arises, the bag can be called mixed. Patriotism (yes, it is one of the foremost feelings we are supposed to have today) is often a fleeting phenomenon, which occurs during a particularly touchy scene during the 'Independence Day' special, movie watching spree. Confused anxiety is another of those feelings, which results as the cognizance of the fact that it's a 'Dry Day'. Some other feelings that are evoked are usually on the darker side, if we spare them a moment's thought.

The feeling of all those people having died and toiled in vain, when we consider the present state of affairs. The feeling of irony when even on this day we get discriminated against or showed down by someone higher in the social order we live in. The feeling of sheer disbelief about how hopeless and grim the situation is, where there is just no way out.

In a way, back when we were under British subjugation, things were easier. We all knew who the enemy was, and we were united in our feelings. Now, it's much worse. The enemy now is within us. We have made our enemy such that it can lurk behind familiar faces, and never stand out in crowds. We all have sheltered a little bit of the enemy and therefore pinpointing at someone is just blaming ourselves basically.

This creates the problem of inherent dilemma of distinguishing between the victim and culprit. We are both at the same time, and that means we are stuck up trying to pose as victims sometimes and disguising ourselves from being seen as the culprit at others.

What has Independence meant to us really? Independence of what do we celebrate? Of thought? Action? Of having choices? Of having an equitable distribution of opportunities? Of having removed discrimination? Of having abolished slavery? Of having no oppressors? Of being able to work honestly and expect a fair return? Of having a say in my own life?

If none of the above then what does it mean? If it means nothing of significance why do we go on celebrating it? Is it part of disguising the ugly truth? Of pretending things are going well, like that man on the dais at Red Fort? What is so difficult about acknowledging our mistakes, our shortcomings?

What is so hard about pledging to be better, for real? Perhaps one thing I can think of is that it makes us human. It makes us confess our weakness, and we don't want to do it. Probably not because how we would feel about it, but more so because how would those whom I sit on top of would feel about it. Imagine a day when a Boss confesses he made a mistake in front of his subordinates. What would that do to his reputation? Who would listen to him the next day? Who would respect him? Who would fear him?

Or think of a father who apologizes to his son for doing or saying something he shouldn't have. That would kill the whole point of being a father wouldn't it. It would mean he is short of perfect. Which would mean he can't any longer exercise his right of being a father on his children.

This is the core problem, by confessing to our crimes, we become prone to even more insinuations. We even may become scapegoats for those who weren't as honest as us. We lose our pride and respect, and we lose our own value and the faith in our judgement when we confess we were wrong. If an Indian says, India has a lot of problems, and it all starts within every person that lives in this country, we would hear it as if the words came from within us. And we would act as if, if we would ignore it, the words would slowly fade away like those cries of conscience always have eventually.

But it stings us a lot, when those words come from an outsider. If a foreigner says what a discriminating, corrupt, poor, lazy country India is, we would all in no time put on our proud helmets, and draw our swords. We would start throwing back javelins of Indian culture and how old and nice it is, and we would quote facts of economical development and point to the Audis and Mercedes on our roads as proofs that we are not poor. We would tell them that we treat foreigners with respect and welcome them with open hearts to our lands (while what we really want to say is we welcome white people with all their money gladly, and any other skin color still disgusts us and throws us in to a xenophobic frenzy).

If anyone points out that we are lazy and corrupt we at once start counting to them the number of IITians in silicon valley making millions of dollars, or we start pointing to our IT industry and generic drugs factories. We just would do anything and everything to continue living in our little bubble. Where self satisfaction, complacency, love of status quo, the fear of change, the threat of something or someone finding out who we really are or what we are really worth of beneath our shells would be known.

A country where competency always comes second to knowing someone high up. A nation where meritocracy gets lost somewhere as someone with a reservation gets a high flying career with less than a tenth of your IQ while you toil around in the sun. A place where destiny and luck are the de facto roll back phenomenons when anything goes wrong, instead of acknowledging the lack of planning and hard work. A land where social respect is determined not by achievement, skills, morals or anything else you might have done since you were born but by caste, color, family wealth, or plain old muscle power. A society where the road to success is believed to pass through filth and dirt, and painfully enough no one will believe you if you tell them it's possible to succeed without being dirty, and even more painfully enough people still want to be successful in such a society at whatever compromises they must make for it. This is the sort of place which goes about rejoicing the day of its birth today.

A child born 65 years ago, who grew up to be a person so ashamed of itself, the only way it finds to avoid the truth is to live in the glory of days gone by. The day of its birth a reminder of what it was and what it has come to. A day when probably its only hope lies in some distant future which might have a glimmer of hope or the long lost pride of the past, which sometimes lets him put up his head high. It's the Independence Day, rejoice people, cause we have to keep up the show. 

Female foeticide - a commentary on Satyamev jayate Episode 1

After watching the first episode, and quite appreciating the effort I felt that though the show was well presented, researched and thought of, something very important was amiss. I was discussing the same with some friends that night and found out some interesting answers about certain aspects of female foeticide untouched by the show.

(For a video of the show with English subs go here and click on the English button in the Tab above the video)

Amongst the various things we found when we discussed the causes of female foeticide, the most important was the answer to the question of how could someone become so depraved to actually carry out such an act as murdering a little innocent child. This was one thing missing starkly from the show, a reflection on where this evil came from, what are the beliefs these people are acting under the influence of, and why is it still going on. And most importantly are we ready yet to remove this social illness?

We need to understand Indian history and culture better to find the root of the problem. As was pointed out by the show also, the problem began in Northern India coupled with Rajasthan region, and then gradually spread out to other parts as well.

What was the basis of the thought in the minds of these people, that made them convinced that killing female children was even a fathomable option? Probably the answer lies in the geographical location of North-North West India. Due to its location the region was continuously under attacks from armies from Persia, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Central Europe, Middle East pretty much anyone who could make an army and was within a year or so of marching distance from India just came here to loot. These ongoing wars with first Muslims and then British kingdoms with local Rajput, Jaat, Sikh, Punjabi, Gurjar clans etc made these clans very aggressive, combat oriented, proud and patriotic. Obviously men of the society had to take charge and deal with the enemy with all might, putting them in positions of power and control. The status of women during these times must have started dipping, as we will see later in the post.

The first requirement to fuel any war is able bodied 'men'. Well that at least was the case until 50 years ago. Now if your clan's survival is continuously at stake, due to ongoing wars, you would for the good of the society wish that you would have more able men 'sons', who can fight with you. Your entire society would want the same. Nothing wrong with that desire, totally justified so far since survival has throughout history been the single most strong motivation of all species ever to have lived, and to ensure survival, species are not afraid to take extreme decisions if the need be. So basically in this age, survival of the society was dependent on having larger armies, which was dependent on the number of men a society had, hence the general social acceptance of the fact that sons are more desirable started for the first time for this reason.

Our cinema also often depicts that notion with dialogues like 'If I had another son I would sacrifice him too for the nation' or something like that. So we get an idea, why sons were desirable for survival of the society.
But this didn't mean women were undesirable, does it? After all, whom would the sons wed and who would give birth to more sons? Now here there is a catch, if a society has more men than women, and a war is going on, you know eventually some men would die and the balance would be restored, but the other way around is not true. Women have usually longer lifespans, and safer lives, in absence of a family to be a part of and tend to, a woman's productivity to the society in the middle ages as a single person was limited. There were very few things she could do.

If this number of single, or widowed women increased too much, this might have created a situation of crisis for the clan as food and other resources were limited, and women were not the principle labors in the fields and hence were not seen as contributing a lot to the food problem. (Of course they were doing their bit, but their bit was useful only in conjunction with a male partner, alone their bit of raising a family, creating a future etc didn't have any significance to the society, as there was no family without a husband). So some genius (pun intended) figured out that if we create a male female ratio with a higher number of males than females, we won't have a lot of widows, we won't have to feed a lot of extra women, and we can better use those resources to grow up a soldier and send him to war, the extra men would die in wars and maintain a balance in society. Now well since we all know selective gender breeding isn't an option in humans, the only option left was what is today known as female foeticide.

There was another reason to be vary of being parenting a girl than a male. The reason was the need to constantly protect the girl from invaders and looters. At the time, it was normal for winning hoards of armies to rape and enslave women and girls from the lands they conquered. It was considered reward or payout for their efforts.

On part of the family who lost its girl, it must have been devastating to have her raped and traumatized for life, as today it must have been a loss of family honor then also, or for her to be taken away or killed after having taken care of her and nurturing her for so long. It must have been really frustrating and painful for any parents. And it wouldn't have taken long for people to realize that perhaps if they had a son instead of being raped he could have fought them back, and died respectably.

Still, another reason and probably the most dangerous one was women themselves getting convinced that being a woman was a bad thing. Now this is the biggest challenge even today. Women, because of their physical vulnerability, their helplessness in times of wars etc, were made convinced by others and by circumstances that they were unwanted and unhelpful. They couldn't fight in the battlefield and they couldn't grow food or hunt. And this meant they became subdued due to their dependence on men for protection and food. This led to terrible things. This submission of women to men meant they lost their self esteem, pride, their feeling of self respect and worth. This resulted in them being used by some men as their properties for their lifetimes. This made them a sort of virtual slaves to the men, who in a lot of cases misused the power. And even today it comes out as domestic violence, male dominance etc. even when the situation has changed a lot.

Now imagine a society where the self image of women is very low. She is devoid of any respect for herself, and all the women she sees around her are going through similar traumas. Would such a woman want to bring another girl to life? To go through all the sufferings? There are good chances that if she won't kill her girl child herself, she wouldn't mind a lot if someone else offered to do the job. And in all fairness, with my 21st century ideals and beliefs I can still see the despair of that mother, who for the best interest of her child chooses to let her die, just so that the child won't have to go through what she herself did.

So, no doubt female foeticide has been in North Indian culture for centuries now, up until around 60 years back, it most probably was never felt in such a severe amount because:
1. Lots of men died untimely early deaths, leaving the ratio more or less equal, that has changed now with no more wars, dangerous jobs or diseases.
2. Families used to be really large, 5-10 children were normal to any couple, so having 2-3 girls in a 6 children pack wasn't considered too bad, the male children used to be the ones looked upon but the females were accepted too as part of the deal. Now families are 2 or 3 children max, so having a boy in them is lesser chances than it was in 6 children, hence the female foeticides, so that people don't end up having 5 children to have one boy.
3. There were no ultrasound machines back then. So the only was out was the cruel one to actually kill a newborn, which was done by ways like putting a tobacco in the mouth of the baby or techniques like that and were usually executed by mid-wives or elder women of the family. Still actually killing a child was a difficult thing and probably stopped a lot of people from doing it, despite them having preferred male children.
4. There was nothing like a national census to actually count people, so if there was a large difference it wasn't felt, as sooner or later men died in wars and became equal.

The reasons as discussed above changed in last few years, they became:
1. Avoidance of dowry, if you don't have a girl
2. The family legacy thing, for which you need to have at least one male child.
3. The physical insecurity associated with young girls, which continued to be a reason even to this date.

Together these three reasons comprise of the premise which leads to any ordinary man/woman to turn in to a girl child killer. The biggest reason is one of these three has happened in a lot of families or in direct relatives, so people understand the pain of having to give all your life's savings to get your daughter married in a decent family, or the pain of having your daughter kidnapped or raped, so in most cases having daughters is a cause of severe mental distress as it starts a chain of responsibilities and difficulties in an already difficult life of a middle/lower class Indian family, and sometimes people just can't take that extra responsibility and end up doing things that they do.

A closer look at the three reasons tell us that the first two, are sort of obvious direct reasons, dowry has been worked upon a lot in last few years from a lot of Government and social initiatives, and we can feel there has been some relief in the number of such cases that now come up. Hopefully the numbers will continue to reduce.

The family legacy thing, is now not such a big female foeticide reason, unless lets say the first 3 or 4 children are all females, which is a little rare. And even in such a case if female foeticide happens, at least 2-3 girls are already  born, which is no less than a bright side, in what's otherwise a grim situation.

The third reason is the one which has surprisingly held on beyond the middle ages, and is the biggest challenge we face today. 65 years have passed since India got independence and we haven't been able to make our country a safe place for women. Until we do that how can mothers feel safe giving birth to girls. And fathers would always live in the fear and paranoia of something bad happening to their daughters. In a society where paedophiles, kidnappings, gangrapes, acid throwing incidents, eve teasing going to new lows are on a rise, we can't judge people who are afraid to bring a girl to this world. As shown in the second episode of the show 53% of all children in India have been subjected to some form of sexual abuse during their childhood. Obviously our society is not a safe one, for our children or women.

I know from some of my female friends, how barbaric men in public transports or public places can be with women. They spare no chance of touching or grabbing whatever they can lay hands on and using whatever excuse they can figure out. It doesn't help that our public transports are so full of people, personal space is actually not possible, and the women are just helpless in such situations as they can't really do anything about it, they can either stand and suffer it in silence or avoid traveling or going out of homes at all. But then homes aren't too safe either, with so many cases of domestic violence and sexual abuse by relatives etc filling up newspapers for decades now.

This brings us to another much tabooed and still very prevalent issue of incestuous relations or neighbors or other close family males taking advantage of young girls. The problem is that girls are so uninformed and so subdued that in most cases they never tell anyone for fear that they themselves would be reprimanded and probably grounded, which is also a true fear in most cases. The use of mobile phones and cameras in recent years, that have led to so many well known MMS and blackmailing cases, is only the tip of the iceberg. For every case that is publicized there are a 100 that are not and women continue being exploited, due to this silence our society has put on itself.

The reason for such indecent behavior by men is unfortunately driven by something which is a result of the that behavior by men, so it's a vicious cycle. Now India doesn't have the Muslim armies raping and looting all they find on their victorious paths. But the feeling of insecurity on part of parents, didn't go away when it should have had, that is right after Britishers left. India should have felt more comfortable and should have let their girls a little more free, their guards a little low. This didn't happen or happened and had bad consequences in some rare cases and so the people continued to treat their girls the way they were doing in the 16th century.

As a result impositions such as don't talk to boys, don't look at them in the eyes, don't encourage them. Don't wear provocative clothes, don't do or say provocative things, don't go out alone anywhere, come back home before dark, don't talk to strangers, don't study in co-ed schools, don't sit near boys in your class, don't make friends with them, don't fall in love with anyone, boys are bad, they will use you in some way etc etc, the long list goes on were drilled down our girls as soon as they learnt to talk. What happened as a result?

Boys and girls didn't know anything about each other, at all. Boys, who became adolescent and had never once talked to a girl as a friend came in to existence (I personally and I went to a good co-ed school and came from a good family background had no female friends till I was 18, and that too was an internet friend, the first real female friend was all the way when I was 21 years old, in final year of university)

Leave alone knowing or understanding that girls also were normal humans, their only source of information became other boys of their age who had heard something about some girl from somewhere and these extreme cases became the basis for all boys to look at all girls. Things like, if a girl wears tight clothes she is inviting men, if she looks at you in the eyes she is interested in you, if she wears revealing clothes, she doesn't mind being touched or you are free to take advantage of her because she is obviously open minded. The distorted notions of sex and women in the minds of these men who grew up never actually having talked to a girl apart from their sisters perhaps, are the real cause for the way they look at women and eventually treat them.

It is imperative to consider the presence of a sister in the family in this scenario. Because, some people would think that if a boy has had a sister in the family, he must learn about girls, and would learn to respect and understand them. This is not always the case, in fact the presence of a sister can often become an example for the boy to learn from, as to how to treat women. And this example much more often than not is a bad one. As discussed above, most of the restrictions in the family apply only to girls, they are supposed to dress appropriately, act appropriately etc etc. Also discrimination exists in other forms too, girls are not sent to as good schools as boys (as the boy should receive the better education, if money is in shortage), girls are not given sufficient nutrition as compared to their brothers and most importantly, girls are not given enough support by the family to be herself, to have an identity, to pursue her goals. What does a boy learn from all this, when it is a daily affair? And this is coupled with violence ill treatment against his mother and other females in the family, making the situation worst. So the existence of sisters or mothers in their life, only makes the situation worse for most guys, as they become used to women being treated as secondary citizens.

These notions come in to picture because no parent would let their daughters to talk to any boys, which they rightly do because these boys have such distorted notions about girls. A perfect vicious cycle.

And the solution can't simply be that parents should allow their daughters to be a little more open to boys, because the age that this happens is a very vulnerable age and we could see a huge surge in early age pregnancies and lot more cases of affairs at the ages of 13-16 or even less if such an unthoughtful action in suddenly implemented. That would be generating a new social problem while trying to eradicate an old one. Although perhaps that problem (if the pregnancies could be avoided through proper sex education of minors, and guidance by teachers, parents and social groups) would be a lesser one than that of female foeticide and sexual abuse and harassment against women.

Just imagine, if all those eve-teasers had a girl friend, or had ever known a girl close enough to understand that they too are humans, and there is a more dignified way of approaching and getting their attention than attacking them in groups or groping at them in metro or buses, then probably they would not do something so indecent. We need to remove the taboo girls are for a young Indian male, we need to end the male female cold war that goes on in most Indian classrooms and neighborhoods even today and even in so called modern top end schools.

My 8 year old cousin is afraid to talk to girls of his class, simply because whenever he has had the chance to do that, it so happened, the girls were offended one way or the other, complained to the teacher with some tears in their eyes, and every time my cousin got punished irrespective of what the issue was or whose fault was it.  It's like trying to compensate for the unfairness that our society is to women by being unfair to men. Now why doesn't anyone intervene in a correct manner here? Don't the teachers notice that no boys of the class talk to any girls of the class? Don't the parents notice, that the child has no female friends? This attitude will only cause more problems than solve any.

More than anything else, it's important that people think about the reasons why these things happen, and understand that it is every little thing we tell to our little son/daughter or nephew/niece that forms the basis for how he/she would treat women/men. As pointed out by a reader, this could be the most practical starting point of eradicating the problem. Effort needs to be put on the children of today, special emphasis needs to be paid in schools and homes, to send the message, that girls and boys are equal in every aspect. And to back up the talk, it must be implemented by treating the girls of the family the same as the boys. Domestic violence, needs to stop and no laws can do it, because unless the wife complains to the Police there is no case. And since the woman is so used to violence to her, since she has been brought up watching all the women in her life treated like that, and since she has no financial independence she can't really do anything, although the fact is she never even feels she is oppressed, that treatment is just normal for her.

The problem is looking at this at their homes makes it normal even for the children as they grow up and then they do the same. Efforts about spreading awareness that women have rights too, working towards financial independence of women, making them aware of their rights, making them aware that being beaten up is not acceptable are going to go a long way. As long as no one stands up against the status quo, it's just going to seem normal to let things be as they are. Women support groups, education for women, opening up to ideas of independence and individuality etc will show the way ahead and will slowly create a good cycle.

That would make all the difference eventually. TAKE THE TABOO OFF WOMEN. Let them be just normal, don't make them feel inferior, treat them as equals. About 46% of us all are women that's not such a bad number, let's not make them farther away from our reach, let's make an environment where females feel safe in talking to us, let them trust men, and let our actions say this. India more than anything else today needs a revival of its women.

This is the responsibility of decent Indian men and women now to make our country a better place for women.

Once again a brave effort by Satyamev Jayate to highlight a very important issue, hopefully they will from future episodes give due consideration to explaining the actual cause of issues rather than just getting sympathy from the plight of victims.

Satyamev Jayate...

Of the only Constant: Change...

It's an amazing time of life... An entire new life waits in front of me, asking to be explored, enjoyed, lived, cherished...

It's not a special time though. It could have been any other day of life. It is just another day of my life. What is making it different is the cognizance of the fact, that I understand I am free to live my life at my terms, do what I deem suitable. Fulfill my destiny, if I might use that controversial word...

I wonder why can't I always stay in that mood. With that positive optimism that everyday is a new day, and brings with it every possibility that I can imagine. Perhaps, it takes some of those decisive moments in life, like when you change cities, without knowing where you are headed next. Or quit your job, and don't know what's next. However, perhaps just perhaps, it's more important to ask that question more often. For possibilities, better ones, exciting ones, life changing ones are always around us waiting to be sometimes gently tapped sometimes vehemently shaken.

My life is changing. Change of country, climate, friends, daily habits, food, culture the normal stuff world feeds on to you, is upon me in few days. For the first few days the change will sometimes shock me, sometimes leave me in awe. And by the time I will get used to it, and to the new life, I will forget the question that, was this life in the first place? Do the people, buildings, culture, food, clothes, languages around me define my life? Or rather I should ask, should they define my life?

The answer can be pondered about at length, but the fact is that our environment defines our actions. And those actions are an outcome of our believes and perceptions. Different people respond differently to the same environment. And different people form different perceptions and believes looking at the same environment. That's the beauty of it... It's also the ugly truth sometimes.

Something very obvious and natural to you, could be completely outrageous and unacceptable to someone from the same environment. People learn to have moderate views over time, so there is less dissonance amongst members of society. That's what the society does to you. It makes you lose that power of sensitivity to your environment and forces you to accept the mass hysteria, sometimes for good. Mostly for some reason, the society doesn't want you to talk about, why else would it banish out the extreme views?

Apparently society is able to work well that way, Humans as a race can be called quite successful judging by population growth! As a species and civilization change has been overwhelming for humans to adapt to. The problem with change is, you can try very hard and cope up with it, it's quite possible, but it is relentless and untiring. And it wears you out sooner or later. On the other hand, it brings immense joy too, for if you can sit back and look at it impartially it can astonish and surprise you in ways unconceivable. Change is an object of beauty, it is a great challenge, for some it is the object of life, for others it comes as an unavoidable part of life

It is a generally accepted notion that successful people/species are those that have learnt to cope up with change. But what does it take to have that capability?

Is it patience, to wait for a life changing change to show up, and then take the right decisions, actions, and make the change somehow fit with your life. Or make your life fit to the change? Or is patience the wrong word and should be replaced with laziness or shortsightedness? Well most of us do this one quite regularly. We all know how to get around with problems as they arise, or when we can't handle them we fall back to the many fallback mechanisms, and if they fail too, we just wither. But some other changes don't really arise as problems. They barely ever get noticed. Which probably means they are not important enough, to stop and ponder over.

Or may be it's one way we keep the change in check, by avoiding, ignoring, postponing it. But well, what else is life after all? Ignoring the fact that it ends with death, or postponing that thought to the very last moment. Focus on the problems at hand, and ignore the rest or leave them for later. Sounds like a great solution. Also sounds like just survival...

So life is then just basically survival, it's a simple game, where you play against death and try to dodge/avoid it, till you can, and then you anyway lose, but not before enjoying the game for as long as you can. Society helps. It helps by introducing you to a lot of ways to survive. It has institutions, where you can gain skills and hence money and hence buy food. Or it has religion, where you can find peace in times of lost hope. It also has families and friends, where you can fall back when you have nothing else to live for.

Surely all that enormous setup of religion and moral values and corporates and politics and stuff works out. More people choose life and find means to sustain it daily than the ones who don't. But what does society gain out of this immense plotting? Does society even know what it is trying to do actually? And does it ever actively contemplate if it's choosing the right way to do it? Does it know how to encompass changes and deal with them? And does it also only just survives, somehow?

Anyway, who is society? Isn't it basically just us. And we don't normally look at changes as they occur, we look at them, as they start affecting us and hence must our society as it is also just us. Then we/society ignores them till the point where they start hurting us. Then we change our lives to adapt to them and thrive in the ensuing peace and bask in the glory of our short lived conquests, till we find ourselves in a bigger mess.

Perhaps there is more about life and change and society than normally meets eye. And perhaps we as a species are too dumbed down to even notice that every second our life is changing. From the 108,000 kilometers that our spaceship Earth is travelling per hour on it's annual journey around the Sun, to the melting glaciers in the Himalayas which would probably not recover till the next ice age, we just safely keep avoiding those insignificant changes and go about surviving each day as it comes... The plan is working out brilliantly, we are thriving on avoidance...

At Sol in Madrid...

The Tendency to be Bored..

Gosh I never thought I would write on this one, but as you will know soon, I had nothing else to do but to write on this one..

In a line this one is about how I get bored of even my most adored passions and habits. And how it affects life, mine and of those around me. A classic example which would for now sound familiar to everyone, is that of songs. One week am listening to November Rain like 300 times, youtube, winamp, my cell phone, remembering the lyrics, searching Wikipedia for the song's performance on billboards and reception by public, the works. The very next week the song has vanished, just plain gone, gone out of the current playlist, gone out of youtube favorites and worst one gone out of mind.

So basically I got bored of liking the same song and decided to dislike that song and move on with life, sounds fair enough, but soon enough I again get bored. This time of disliking the song which once I liked so much and hence I again start to like the song, I mean what is that supposed to mean. I understand one thing, which says "Change is the only Constant" but does there have to be a change just for the heck of it?? On one hand is the danger of being a single tracked person who can't open up to new ideas, who cannot accept change even when it comes or is needed. Whilst on the other hand we have the case which I am suffering from I can't bloody hold on to one thing for a long duration of time without being distracted.

Well, I don't know sometimes I feel happy and lucky to be like this since I get to think of new ideas, or if we take the case of songs get to listen to new songs which I wouldn't have had if I would never be bored of the 1^st song. Sounds like a progressive thing to do, something like you are moving on with life, exploring new things, new ideas and not giving up on the old ones but building up on them. Combining the ideas gained during the break with the previous ones and coming with better deeper thoughts, more broad analysis and probably a more effective end result.

All well and good, but now comes the problem part, which seems to be specific when this same attitude gets implemented on humans. It's one deadly combo. Imagine this, you are with a person, really engrossed like with November Rain I was mentioning above. So while you were liking them you were totally drowned in them, doing everything together, like listening to November Rain while brushing the teeth or in the bath tub or while washing dishes. So as always there was an excess of something and in a few weeks of months or whatever your limit is, you get bored. There is a slight difference though; unlike November Rain now the other party has feelings! All the ingredients of a death trap are in place! You got bored of a person before they got bored of you (which would have happened eventually in any case, if you hadn't been the first one to fail).

So now all the above mentioned so called good things of exposure and new ideas and works get null and void ab initio. The whole picture changes now; just a full 180° shift. If the other person knows, that you are bored by excess of exposure, you are bloody well dead. So you try to lie, you make excuses, you say you got work to do, you got to sleep, you are tired etc. Now the problem is getting worse ok, you know you are lying, so you start feeling guilty. The other person on the other hand, gets a clue that something is not right, no one can be a perfect liar, right. Or the person starts asking you accounts of time you spent doing what you said you were. Which since you never did, you don't know what to say about. You make up more lies, but keep getting trapped, and a simple life becomes complex now managing all the lies, all the fake urgent works you have to do, all the extra sleep you have to take these days.

You try to explore the option of telling them that you want some personal space, a relief for sometime so you can be refreshed for the next time you meet. And can add more value to the next time you get together. But you don't think they will understand. You think they will take it as a personal insult that you have gotten bored of being with them. And guess what, you are dead on right with that belief. Because that's exactly how they are going to react when they know, but still you get trapped into telling them the truth, because they found out something is not right, and they are insisting to know. They are telling you they would take it like mature people, and will understand and try to solve your problem. And yeah you fall for the trap, you think that probably they might be so cool after all and might take a fact as a fact, a need as a need and would give you some space when you get bored. So you tell them the facts and BANG!! No words needed to describe what happens next.

Well people are not rational not a bit. And people are mean and very selfish. Even when they love they do it to be loved back and when that doesn't happen they start hating you. That's how we are. We all feel that way, but try to hide those feelings of selfishness behind a lot of veils and vanity. Life would be kind of tough and not so beautiful if people accepted this as a fact that there can be no real cause for a person doing anything for some duration of time without satisfying a personal need. Now since it feels us right or better to believe in the other person, to take their love at face value, rather than looking for reasons or motives behind it, we behave that way, and expect the same from the other person, hence building on so called trust and relations which are after all mutually beneficial unsaid pacts in very bleak terms.

But why should humans alone be blamed for this cold heartedness, I don't think even a dog can love someone selflessly if in the 1^st place that someone didn't show some promise of affection. The dog just plays along in hope of getting that affection continuously. So weird as it may sound, and tough as it might be to swallow, we are all socially complex, personally motivated, individually responsible beings, and giving a preference to someone else over self can be temporarily forced on oneself but is not sustainable in the long term.

Why so many Boundaries?

Well, I am in Paris for the last six months now. And last month I got an intern in Madrid finally after much effort (pun intended). So far everything had been smooth. But, things were going to change very soon. I was going to face the Visa monster. Yeah that's how fed up and scared of Visa I am now. Apparently in spite of having a valid Schengen Visa I was required to get the Spanish student's Visa I don't know why! Anyways, I started realizing I needed some typical documents to be able to apply for this Visa. And hence started the vicious cycle. There was one particular doc which asked me to get a police clearance certificate for the last 5 years. I said Gosh, hypocrites!! But then I had to visit the Indian embassy like 10 times in about 10 days to finally get that doc, which included getting to know things like Fax machine out of order, phone not working, passport office Bhopal is lying, their Email is bouncing. Bureaucracy at its best!

Anyways I gave up after wasting 10 days to no use and was going to get a plane ticket for India, when I got the call from the Amb-Inde that my doc was ready. Finally some relief I thought, and then I got the doc after 2 more days, taking which I happily reached the Spanish Consulate, only to know that now there was some problem with my sponsorship documents. Apparently they couldn't convert the money which was obviously shown in Indian Rupees in my accounts and affidavits to Euros. I felt like pulling the hair off my head. On the other hand, I was under pressure from my university as well my employer, and I was losing all hope slowly if I would ever be able to get this Visa in time.

Amidst all this fuss, I started thinking why are there so many boundaries? Why is there a separative force inside humans? What is the need that comes out in various forms like, having own identity, a cultural group, a smaller and smaller community which one can call one's own, and this tendency never seems to be satisfied, however pieces people do themselves, however lines people draw between each other, they want more and more. Everyone wants to be different, first they divide lines on countries, then color, religion, then race, caste, sub caste, language, economy, work, cities, on practically anything and everything conceivable we want to differentiate from others and be someone or something specific. Although I totally fail to understand what is the root of this desire, since the effects of this desire are definitely disastrous, it makes sense to question the cause.

Probably people want to take pride in belonging to a particular group. Feel dedicated and loyal to some community or cause or region. Probably they want to be part of a smaller group where people are closer to each other than the rest of the world. This probably has to do with a feeling of security and belongingness, like in case of a family, where one can trust each other and stand up for each other without a second thought. Another reason might be devotion or belief in a certain common cause, probably political parties or terrorist groups can be cited as examples (no hidden meanings in keeping the two together).

All of the above sound like good reasons to come together and be for each other, or reasons where being a group is better than being alone. But doesn't justify the tendency to keep breaking groups into smaller and smaller ones, does it? If I see Indian context for example, I see joint families breaking down into smaller ones, I see economically there are much more clearly defined divisions now, (upper middle, lower middle, middle, upper lower classes etc) If I count the number of states of India, I have the toughest time, because every time I remember the new number, there is another new state. And demands for even more new ones never stop. There are even demands for separate countries within India, northeast, Kashmir are no new issues. And obviously how can we forget the formation of Pakistan and Bangladesh itself. The same is true almost globally. Everywhere differentiation based on any conceivable parameter is prevalent.

The major problem with this differentiation is that, although it makes the members of a certain group more favorable and suitable for each other (an Indian would support an Indian in say France). But on the other hand it invariably leads to a feeling of supremacy for one's own group and a feeling of intolerance or lack of understanding of beliefs and behaviors for everyone outside their group. It makes people narrow minded to be part of strictly defined groups of people. Because these groups make their own culture and norms and tend to block certain ideas and practices or perhaps because the group is closed can't accept or aren't open to outside influences. As we have seen from history whenever this has happened it has lead to revolts, violence, massacres, wars, racial injustices and atrocities.

The world seemed to realize this after the world wars, and there were efforts to mitigate some boundaries and create free movement of people across boundaries, the united Europe we see today is one testimony to that effect, but the problem is far from over. The countries have still withheld their cultural identities perhaps even more dearly now. The French government for example is pouring in a lot of money to keep people from moving towards English as a language. Even back in India, there are states which are making Hindi encouragement an agenda. Of course it's not the best example to quote from India, better examples would be Shivsena, bajrangdal, SIMI and separationist forces in telangana, vidarbh, Kashmir, the BODO group, maos etc.

I know these as facts but still fail to see who benefits from partitions, from creating walls and boundaries, from dividing one man from another. Undoubtably someone is using the situation, to their advantage. What's showed to people is the advantage of making groups, but what happens behind the walls, is something else, the real motives of the leaders in this case or probably the executioners is shady. And what should have ideally been a place to improve a group to take each other forward, turns into a race of taking the other groups backwards, instead of focusing on themselves and loving the group, they start hating other groups and being jealous.

Something, somewhere is very wrong, I just can't reach it yet…

The Ultimate Objective of my Writings…

I don't know when or why it happened!
Perhaps it was those years in Engineering days, when I read a few novels, that's also the only time I have read something, and as any other newbie it was all fiction, mostly Christie or McLean or after some influence from the so called elites I read some Grisham and Ludlum, but I always preferred Sheldon over them. So my taste was more for raw kind of novels, with explicit plots, and well defined clear feelings and motives, the subtleties didn't appeal too much to me, and perhaps it's a characteristic of my nature also.
Anyway, I don't recall, when I decided to do this explicitly, but my first blog post dates back to 2006, 3^rd or 4^th year of college, perhaps I was just trying out something new, riding the blogging wave. But it lasted very briefly. I realized majorly that I had a knack for it, when I was in TCS in 2008, and was preparing for B-School interviews and waiting for calls. PagalGuy was the forum where it came out of me like it was waiting to explode. I read PagalGuy posts for about 2-3 days, and was thinking to myself that these guys (some of who had posted 2-4 thousands of posts), are real big time masters, and for a moment I thought whether or not should I post anything because the guys over there were very thorough with what they said, and I didn't want to get embarrassed by being caught publicly making a mistake. But nevertheless, my first post was against PagalGuy's system of keeping the discussion very focused on the point of discussion, and as a result losing all the fun of interacting with so many really bright people.
As expected the post gained some major criticism and was massively groaned at but then I generated some support from some guys, who could understand what I was saying and that was the start. So I established two things again to myself, I could defy authority and question it at its most basic form, and also I could write and be understood.
Lucky for me both the things held on during the coming times. I think the movie RDB had a huge impact on me and made me think, and realize the importance of questioning and asking and eventually doing whatever it takes to create a difference. It gave me another push to continue to defy present norms and keep challenging things, beliefs.
It came out in various forms, long chats with friends about religion, politics, society, India, my conversion to 1^st atheism and then gradually mellowing down to agnostic, the natural inclination towards politics and socialism, the quest to finding paradoxes, problems and intricacies of systems and hence the solutions.
But then as I kept finding problems and solutions I felt I need to do more than just share them with some friends, I thought I needed more visibility, and obviously this part came in after I joined the B-School, and even though there were a lot of things to do during this while, I could still find some time to continue thinking and write whenever I could.
As it stands today, I wish to start a full fledged online campaign, a platform where young people from all walks of life can come together and find practical solutions to real problems, which our country, society, people and environment are facing. I am not sure whether to go for a website straight away, or wait for a while. But I am quite sure this will be a reality soon.
Well if I can use this blog as a platform, it's an open invitation to all serial bloggers and occasional ones, to help me, with what I plan to do. Together we can make this really large, which is also the only way to make it successful, since to be heard is the first step to causing a thought, which only can lead to some action.

Tapasya

So, I am an environmentalist and consider myself quite responsible to do something to preserve it. Hence I have always been on lookout for activities where I can leave a mark or do something worthwhile, have joined Greenpeace in the past and did some other basic stuff, but wanted to go bigger. So here came my chance, there is this guy who is roomie's friend, one day he came to our room and told us about this initiative which in simple terms is about environment consciousness but it's bigger in terms of operations and impact, well I was definitely in, the moment I heard it. About the initiative, the operation is going to begin with a big event wherein we will arrange for a gathering of about 5000 eminent people from politics, bureaucracy, social leaders, and other important people from the NCR region primarily, as this is the venue for the opening event. This event will have lots of practical and factual information being delivered, and a strong message being passed that some people want to do something for the environment and everyone else is expected to at least support it as basic responsibility, even if they can't be a part of the operation itself. This event will be followed by numerous smaller events across the country, concentrating on places where a mass of people can be gathered and then delivering the message. Focus shall be on schools, colleges, institutions, markets, big housing societies etc.

One of the basic problems we faced while brainstorming on how to make it more effective and sustainable was that most people do recognize it as an issue, and tend to know of the basic facts about the spill outs. But, still somehow people don't really appreciate the gravity of the situation; they hear about global warming and fail to notice the almost tangible changes in weather for example. Most people want to do something or are conscious but don't have time. In a country like India lack of resources can be another major setback. Despite all this, some people, agencies NGOs have come up and are trying on various levels, but then there arises the problem of coordination and auditing. Believe it or not, even as all NGOs are supposed to work for environment consciousness and general social betterment, most do not want to cooperate with each other. There is this totally irrational competition or ego amongst these NGOs or agencies as well, which is holding back the collective effort from being substantial. Anyways this post is not about cribbing over what's wrong, but is about thinking what can be done to make things better.

As for my part in the NGO and the event I have been given the task to maintain the website and to handle corporate communications. Publishing various facts, analysis etc. and performing the task of an editor for the website. Although it's been getting really tough to find some time after the regular B-school life for the extra effort required, but my excitement and interest about doing a good self satisfying thing has kept me going. I have been wondering how to make the effort more inclusive, the message more penetrative, the goal more holistic and the people more interested. And as the theme of the event says, with which I totally agree, we need to glamorize the word 'environment conscious', we need to make it the next 'in' thing. Something people would take pride in indulging in and would like to show off. This can apply to all sections of society but, it would be easier to begin with the youth and the elite. Both of who are relatively open minded and have the time, energy and resources to put in the effort.

Now, we all talk about putting in the effort, and taking the pains, and all… but what is this effort? What do we need to do? Is writing blogs on environment an effort? Is organizing such events an effort? Will it help the environment? Not directly it seems, in fact conducting such a huge event will lead to wastage of energy in one way which is quite paradoxical to what we are saying! Although it will create a ripple, in the pond perhaps, it can't kick everyone out of the slumber at once, but it might shake them a bit, remind them for a few hours, and maybe even bring a few facts to the notice of people, which have been lost, or ignored. Also the subsequent events to be organized in schools etc. are going to be the key I suppose, primarily because the youth is more responsive and caring today, after entering adulthood, survival becomes such a looming problem that the planet getting heated up doesn't seem so big.

As we could figure out why the efforts were not sustainable, we had to think out of the boxes and decide on strategies that could help us having an impact that would last. I could think of few things which remain an integral part of life despite all else that's happening to us in the while, would like to quote some of those here; moral values, integrity, hygiene etc. these are the things which we have accepted as general norms of good life, and follow them regardless of all other pain in life, we take pride in these things and count them as assets, don't we? We thought why can't environment be one of these things? Something you can feel proud of if your son shows interest in it, or something you can mention at a tea party and would hold your head high while doing so. Something you can get printed on your T-shirts and feel cool about it.

So that's basically the endeavour we have set for ourselves, we understand and know it's going to have to be really big and should reach out to people from all possible mediums. TV, radio, shows, events, movies, newspaper, and celebrities whatever it takes to make the message heard and understood. Remember the news which created so many ripples, saying Amitabh Bachchan is vegetarian, it gave immediate pride to every vegetarian, I remember my parents took pride in mentioning it. Well so it's like this, if John Abraham says save environment it will be cool, if in a movie SRK quotes global warming it would cause kitty party discussion amongst ladies. It sounds really farfetched as of now, but we will be trying our best definitely.

I have to get the website started as soon as possible so for now so it's time to move…

For any more info or details on the same feel free to get in touch.. Afterall that's all we intend to achieve, your attention.. :)