#SachinRameshTendulkar

Days like today make you feel that the clock never stops ticking. That growing old is inevitable. That nothing lasts forever. That everything has an end. That we're all going to die some day. Hopefully later than sooner :|

"Crimes of Hate in a developing country"

 

An annoying wake up alarm – (and if that’s not loud enough) – a deafening argument between the wife and the housemaid – followed by a never ending journey to work through the metropolitan traffic – only to encounter an ever frowning boss right at the entrance - of a negatively charged workplace - placed right next to a disoriented set of colleagues - working for a team that is always swamped with poor standard projects – back home to an ever discontented wife – and an unhappy self.

A typical itinerary for almost everyday

Unpleasantness Quotient

This state of unhappiness and un-fulfillment is measured by the ‘unpleasantness quotient’ that arises when, even after a healthy financial situation one continues to remain in a state of dissatisfaction, and ultimately develops a resenting attitude. In a developing and a growing country, personal income unquestionably rises too. But if this economic development ends up in a creation of a pessimistic society, does that make all the effort worthwhile?

Concept of modernization

According to Fred Riggs, it is the ‘developmental gap’ between the economically privileged and the under privileged that is the biggest challenge for administration in a developing country.  This gap is further unsettled, when a backward society struggles to deal with ‘modernization’ – a concept which means bringing about a ‘social change’ together with the ‘economic development’.

The cycle of economic development for a country may probably be about a 100 years long. But it is much shorter than the cycle of ‘social development’ – a factor of many interdependent variables in a culture. The simultaneity of both results in emergence of a ‘hybrid society’ that on the contrary, starts to overlook the importance of social change in the pursuit of economic development. It is a situation where modernization actually results in conception of a ‘Zombie’ culture - where people become focused on self-development rather than community development - where one man’s loss is another man’s gain – Where everyone hates everyone.

Egocentricity and Self centrism

An ego centric person is the one who disregards others’ perspectives and beliefs. In a country with myriad ethnicities and religions, small ethnic ego centric groups are treacherous to a harmonious coexistence. These are the economically thriving groups of individuals who on one hand claim all benefit of the collective growth in a country, but reject a widespread social change on the other hand, creating a barrier to a country level social development. They dwell on their gullible ethnic followers and misanthropically alienate a significant population from the evolution. Dealing with such groups can be extremely challenging for a federal republic that is extremely presidential at the local level.

At individual level, self centrism takes cues from ego centrism. The individual loses sight of a symbiotic living and becomes parasitic i.e. it feeds on collective growth but returns nothing. For example - A traffic policeman who accepts bribe for releasing a traffic violator, or a bureaucrat who passes a project in return of a huge favor, does not amount to a collective growth.

A very few could continue to pursue honesty and optimism in such a situation. The rest will simply develop resentment against the system.

Public loathing

Do you get almost sickened by the fact that there are too many people sharing too little resources?

We detest other people – especially where one world chooses not to contribute to the public money at all. The extent to which this feeling of ‘hatred’ persists in our minds, against this part of the world is beyond belief. To add to it, there is no way one can identify the tax criminals.

‘Hate’ is an emotion that runs through almost everyone, but is verbally expressed the most by anyone who has ever driven a car in a metropolitan city (read: road rage). It is in the form of the reluctance that we often demonstrate to the accident struck on roads (read: ‘Bystander apathy’). It is the ‘unhealthy mindset’ through which we perceive everyone else as a ‘potential rival’ to our very survival, whether at work (read: corporate rivalry), at home or in life as such which undermines every possible sensibility that one has an option to pursue.

In a country of limited means and massive economic disparities, the queue is a long one outside a public office, on a job portal, for admissions to a state hospital, school/college enrolments or for a service’s seat. Running out of patience is easy. Anger, frustration and hate is inevitable. 

Oppression of the weaker components of the society that followed the former caste system has evolved today, taking the crime against weaker sections of the society to entirely a different level, especially in case of women.

Crimes against women

Women are treated unequally invariably in every part of the country for all forms of nutritional, educational and developmental opportunities. According to National Crime Records Bureau, The dowry death statistics work out to ‘1 death every hour’. Unlike popular belief, rapes and gang-rapes are also social crimes and not sexual crimes that are committed as conditional strategies employed by men to ‘keep women in their place’. Especially, Gang-rapes where the pleasure inundated is twice and the responsibility of the crime diffused.

Even political leaders often overlook that the key to the economic growth lies in the development of a better world for women. Focus on this 50 percent of the world can unlock the full economic potential of a country, strengthen productivity, stimulate demand and boost growth.

Summary

To sum up, the biggest evil in a developing society is the inception of a ‘value system’ based on reckless virtues. It is important to stick to the values of humanity, love and equality, as the same will get transferred onto the forthcoming generations. The idea is to measure growth in terms of GDP, life expectancy, literacy and levels of employment and also in terms of the less-tangible factors such as mutual love and harmony, safety and freedom from fear of physical harm, gender equality and the extent of participation in civil society.

Such socio-economic community development is the key to a better country, a ‘hate-free’ society and a far less unpleasantness quotient for the day.

 

"India - the unfulfilled dream"

The most common conversation I have with other people these days is that how the Government conveniently passes the buck on crucial national issues. Everyone seems to have turned a skeptic of all government officials now due to what we have experienced in recent times. As the 2014 elections are nearing, there is heightened uncertainty on the very integrity of the two national coalition parties and none of the respective candidates seems promising enough to be able to turnaround the suspended ‘India growth story’, or to spearhead some serious disciplinary changes in the society.

As a child, I was always in awe of the great freedom fighters who loved their country more than their lives and sacrificed their youth for freedom, the nationalist leaders who were able to direct millions of people towards the single aim of overthrowing one of the greatest powers of history, and the distinguished statesmen that had brought the scattered princely states together to create the world’s largest federal system of all times – and that was not even a 100 years back! Today, corruption seems to be deep rooted in the society so much that it is impossible to imagine the nation that offers a socialistic solution to the problems, where the bureaucracy is not read as red tape or nepotism and the politicians work for the betterment of people without seeking wealth accumulating opportunities.

All of this has started to make me believe that we probably were better off being ruled over by the British Monarchy – or should have had set up a dictatorship rule for ourselves at the time of independence. Because the constitution then, written by the 207 members of the constituent assembly who went searching around and consolidating the “Good” democratic policies followed in the west, had its pedestal on the sentiments of the illiterate population craving for freedom since 200 odd years. We got a legally enforced set of Fundamental Rights, an obligatory set of Fundamental Duties, and a non-enforceable policy framing rule book for the state called the Directive Principles.

And hence in 1947, a free, but irresponsible nation was born, that eventually created a society that was abundantly free, but lacked self discipline. That trusted its statesmen to lead the nation with the same Gandhian principles. Unfortunately, that forgot that the future leaders can and will emerge only from among its own people.

In this light, can we still blame the government for all instances of corruption and carelessness? Or say that even 50% of these instances are only because of their misconduct? How skeptical should we be, and how much blame must rest on their shoulders for these mishaps?

The fact that the framing of laws in the beginning phase was more lenient than it should have been cannot be changed. But what can be changed is the resultant mind frame of the society.  The 60% literate population as compared to only 12% at the time of independence is only an advantage to the situation. We are not the same old illiterate bunch of monkeys, who could only recognize a symbol and would vote blindly without even knowing the name of the candidate. We do not want a prime minister who is made a prime minister just because his grand father was a great leader.

Changes of the society however will not happen overnight. They are slow, steady but far more efficient when resolved in the minds of the people – Like constituting a fearless whistle-blowing attitude, female education, self-aggression management, overcoming one’s sense of competition and comparison, empathy and understanding towards the economically deprived, mutual love, respect and chivalry, and awareness of the national events.

A deeply corrupt society can also be overthrown gradually by sowing superior quality seeds – for example by something as basic as a responsible and enlightened upbringing of children. Conventional wisdom long held that the children are not capable of lying and stealing, where as the more modern research states that the children start lying and stealing as early as at 2 years for many of the same reasons adults do - to avoid punishment, to gain an advantage, to protect against an unwanted consequence, and even to boost self-esteem. We all tell lies of convenience, and our children watch and learn — but not always so literally. Helping the future generation develop morality and responsibility for its own actions over the long haul is the goal and also a solution that we all can collectively contribute to.

The game is not yet over.

"Singing to the tune of... Don't wake me up!"

This is my life
Its not what it was before
All these feelings I've shared
And these are my dreams
That I'd never lived before
Somebody shake me
'Cause I
I must be sleeping

These are my words
That I've never said before
I think I'm doing okay
And this is the smile
That I've never shown before

Somebody shake me 'cause I
I must be sleeping


Now that we're here,
It's so far away
All the struggle we thought was in vain
All in the mistakes,
One life contained
They all finally start to go away
Now that we're here it's so far away
And I feel like I can face the day, and I can forgive
And I'm not ashamed to be the person that I am today


I'm so afraid of waking
Please don't shake me
Afraid of waking
Please don't shake me


- So far away lyrics by Staind

"I think, therefore I am"

‘Ceteris Paribus’ – means ‘everything else unchanged’, a term often used to understand many otherwise inexplicable, inconsistent concepts. But in reality, one cannot assume every other factor to be a constant to understand the performance of a concept in isolation. In the ancient world, it was imperative for the human mind that was in its formative years, to build hypothesis and come out with theoretical explanations of both physical and cosmological processes to begin with, particularly to make way for ‘rationality’ against merely labeling everything as an ‘act of god’. But now, having moved far ahead in time, it is crucial for us to develop contemporary philosophies, based on the principle of relativity. Theories that do not provide factual information or guarantee the truth, but that are built up empirically on correct premises - based on scenarios and ever changing variables.

In the metaphysical world, ‘existence’ is a matter of fact, one of the perennial topics of the subject. ‘To be’ is to exist – simple. But ‘to be’ where? To be walking on the earth, or to be lying down, to be in the womb, in the sperm? Or ‘to be’ in a more abstract form - in thoughts, in mind or dreams? I’d like to believe that existence cannot be as lame as something that you can touch and that a human mind is capable of imagining anything, even something as complicated as a ‘feeling of touch’.

Continuing to think on the same lines, it could be possible that everyone and everything around one is nothing but a figment of one’s own imagination - the creative play of one’s mind.

For example, the loving family and friends, personal space and home - created to comfort and provide the feeling of belongingness. The positive and inspirational characters like teachers, books of knowledge – created to define all source of existing super awareness of the mind, only appearing to be arising from them. The wealthy and the powerful characters crafted for one to see the way up and decide which way to go. The poor and needy created to keep the feet grounded. The strength of the mind determines how one leads a life. The dreams and the hallucinations, nothing but the incomplete figments.

The ever changing technology, nothing but one’s own intellect – taking its form as soon as it reaches hands. The news – constructive or destructive, all fabricated according to the positive or negative state of mind. Pain, only a wake up factor, or a desire to remove boredom, and joy a means to remain in the moment.

If somebody else dies, the supposed being who has supposedly "died" is only a phantom of one’s imagination, or more plausibly – redundancy of a character. Death of a mind could just be a belief that ultimately one will break away from the otherwise infinitely long existence – which, according to me is a much scary possibility.

To sum up, the world as we see is one’s own universe.

I read about this online to see if there’s someone else who thinks like me and bumped into a concept called “Solipsism”, which is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist. Solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure. The external world and other minds cannot be known, and might not exist outside the mind.

As a metaphysical position, solipsism goes further to the conclusion that the world and other minds do not exist. As such it is the only epistemological position that, by its own postulate, is both irrefutable and yet indefensible in the same manner.

There will be questions that the concept of Solipsism might not seem to resolve, but then even metaphysics has failed to resolve innumerable doubts on the concept of existence. However, my only question that remains unanswered is that if people and things  around are a figment of my imagination, is it possible that my own existence is someone else’s imagination?

To read more on Solipsism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism

"Prisoner"

Gazing through the dungeons, jailed, death-rowed,

Utterly self inflicted,

Not for the stones that I pelted in impatience, absolutely inadvertent,

That might have flown out in different directions, to unfamiliar kingdoms,

But for the continuous process of self-arbitration,

That follows suit over everything that I ever did, all that I do,

Upon the exactness of the expectation, of mine and the others,

All the while, it has consistently killed the power of my imagination, everything that I could have been,

and has blatantly criminalised my failures and embarrassments.

They forget, disappear and die, but they live with their scornfulness in my mind,

Nurturing the fire of instigation, not inspiration,

I will follow them, with the good advice that they gave away in kind,

And took away my freedom to be ME,

I will follow them, till I fulfil and eventually break away from the bond that we share,

I will follow them till I prove their point,

And after that, I will stand resurrected.

"Growing up & Growing out of all"

When was the last time         “You picked a racket?”

                                                “Or played Frisbee?”

                                                “Said a ‘hi’ to the kid next door?”

                                                “Lied to save a friend who broke a glass window with a ‘six’?

                                                “Picked up a comic?”     

                                                “Gifted a ‘Happy Teacher’s day’ hallmark card to your favourite teacher?”

                                                 “Or made one for your Grandmother on her Birthday, that said, 

                                                  Live Long Life"

                                               

                                                “Had the most amazing party with friends, WITHOUT the booze?”

                                                “Distributed candies to complete strangers on a special occasion?”

                                                “Drew your favourite cartoon on a piece of paper?”

                                                “Pestered Ma, for a bedtime story?”

                                                “Fight like crazy with the sibling, yet forget about it next morning,

             ...to pick up another at the Breakfast table, for? Maggi Noodles?”

 The last time that “you worked hard for a good result, not to belittle the

opponent,  but just for your own self?”

“Tied a friendship band to someone, without consideration to one's background

  story?”

“Spent an evening in the park, running around with friends and didn’t get

  tired?”
“Brought home, an injured squirrel?”

“Organised a surprise birthday party, for your father?”

“Didn’t think twice before calling a long lost friend on a Christmas?”
“Hung stockings over the rope in the courtyard, believing that the Santa will fill it with goodies and goodness?”

“And confessed every little sin to the ones you loved?”

The last time that “you gave away your tiffin to feed a hungry dog?”

And the last time, “that you focussed 100% on WHAT you’re doing, than the expected outcome, or the reason why you’re doing it,

or did something completely Random?”

Just a thought

No matter how filthy it gets, you can always clean it right up!!

"The Feather under the Hat" #34

Solitude is not the absence of Love, but its complement.

Solitude is not the absence of company, but the moment when our soul is free to speak to us and help us decide what to do with our life.

Therefore, blessed are those who do not fear solitude, who are not afraid of their own company, who are not always desperately looking for something to do, something to amuse themselves with, something to judge.

If you are never alone, you cannot know yourself. And if you do not know yourself, you will begin to fear the void.

But the void does not exist. A vast world lies hidden in our soul, waiting to be discovered. There it is, with all its strength intact, but it is so new and so powerful that we are afraid to acknowledge its existence.

Just as Love is the divine condition, so solitude is the human condition. And for those who understand the miracle of life, those two states peacefully coexist.

-ACCRA

"If you've just turned Twenty Eight"

Question: So how does it feel 2 years away from 30?

(Horrible, terrible, wish I could turn the clock behind!!)

Answer: (smilingly) “Well, it isn’t that bad. Isn’t age simply a number? As long as there’s still time that I get nasty wrinkles on my face and start to lose my hair, it’s alright. J

( :\ :’( )

Most women, at the onset of the later twenties go through massive unusual psychological insecurities – It could be anything from Career, Appearance, Weight, the dilemma of Marriage or Commitment (& the suffocating family pressure around it) to the unstoppable ‘Biological Clock’ of reproduction and this and that. If they said that the most important turning points in a woman’s life are, the twelve, sixteen, eighteen, twenty one, thirty, forty five, sixty and so on, I guess they forgot to include the most critical of all.

If you’ve just turned twenty eight, you might have been finished with at least your “student life”. So the good old exams can be bid goodbyes forever (err… by that I mean exams of those kinds). You’re most likely to have figured what you wanted to do in terms of your career and are expecting a decent stability there in for some time. That’s actually a reason of concern because parents see THAT, and gleefully decide up to end the cool and carefree era of your spinsterhood and rob you off your 100%-spend-on-self freedom and I-love-my-boyfriend-but-that-guy-is-cute life. And suddenly you are required to pick and choose from A. Serving tea to a queue of suited-booted prospective grooms (while their moms noticing the tiniest move you make) or B. Get the steady boyfriend’s full family bio-data, that’s when you were just thinking about how to wrap up that chapter with him.

(And you thought Puberty was tough on you!?)

Career-wise, things keep going well until you step in your office. You just got a subordinate who’s consistently terrible at whatever he’s been asked to do. He has some preconceived notions on how a female boss is usually like (he picked that one from college), and hence there is a possibility that he despises you. And each time you delegate, he deliberately tries to slander your ultimate accountability to YOUR boss – Who ‘just by the way’ thinks that you’re reckless and that you shun work responsibilities. Yeah, the Boss is right – for the kind of work sometimes that’s given to you as against what the lateral manager is given (who happens to be a guy), is crap. And you shun crap, nothing’s wrong in that. Your next promotion is due since last year, and everything seems to be nothing but SLOW, snail speed, just for you. And you just turned twenty eight!

Marriage is good – *post 11PM. Rest everything is a juggle between Home–Work–Homework & Husband work. What seemed like a lot of money now is always less. It’s like Minus (1) of everything you ever thought it would be like in your mind – 1 TV for 2, 1 Car for 2, 2 BHK for a 3 BHK, 1 trip for 2 in a year, Domestic for each International and yes you can’t buy a dress for each occasion for your sister’s wedding! Yes ‘the birthday gift’ from your husband is still a valid phenomenon, but now there are no surprises anymore – you get to choose one from the bottom three (cheapest) priority items from your own wish list – and still not be sure of the “Brand” you wanted, getting compromised, with another “Similar” brand with an obviously lower price tag. And finally, with the contemplation and discussions happening about each time you have to make a massive capital expense being a routine, the parents (earlier 2, now 4) suddenly feel older and senile and make haphazard demands of getting to see the face of the future generation. (Really? Now??). And all you can do is “act shy” and hide yourself somewhere. “Yes of course Mom! That’s exactly what I’m planning to do. Sell my newly bought house and fund your grandchildren’s diapers with that!”

Having said all that, I may have ruined your birthday spirit and you might just be on the verge of a depression – thinking about what may be in store for you.

But hey wait, did I tell you that you’re twenty eight now, and can proudly say you are a self dependent principal decision maker in your family – and you can take it where you want to from here. You have a house of your own and you can decide which bedroom to take for yourself. The kitchen is yours and you can cook or get your delightful favorites cooked. It’s the time when you reap benefits of whatever good you did in the past, and it’s time when you’re most likely to have a beautiful companion to share it with. This is the time when the parents need the best in you, and you deliver. Yes, it’s a tough time, but it makes you a tougher woman.

And “Twenty eight” is when you have just become a complete woman. So Congratulations and Happy birthday!

(Oh come on, piss off jerk, it’s my birthday!!!)

J