Sunday, December 28, 2008

The Walkway


The narrowing strip of land on which we were walking, if seen from sky, looked like a church fallen flat on the blue bed of water, with its long tapering spire thrust deep into the stomach of the sea, spilling a sea of blue blood.

However, if you looked above, from down, from the sea, you could hardly see the walk-way from there. From there, you could only see a flat face of one of the two mountainous walls, or their joining edge towering into the clouds.

The waves of the sea leaped and crashed furiously at the foot of the walls. At the top, almost a thousand feet above the sea, we were walking oblivious to the noise. The sound of sea could hardly climb up to us. There was a humming silence in the air, and a serenity typical of the seaside nights, embracing us all over. A gentle breeze blew carrying the cool freshness of the sea, caressing our faces, casting spell on our mind. That walk was like a dream.

We had come far from the city lights. We had walked past the sinking sun, and then the last of lamp-posts, and now the light faded behind us. In the light of day, we wouldn't possibly have taken that way. In the darkness, we were not able to see where the road led. The sides were appearing to come closer. They had to meet somewhere ahead. It was just a matter of distance.

Above us, the night was pitch dark, and it stretched as far as our eyes could see. The stars sparkled as they sometimes do. It seemed that they had descended a few stairs. They seemed nearer than ever.

The narrowing road was pushing us closer. It was increasingly hard for us to maintain a safe distance.

- Didn't I say you'll love it?
- Yes, I'm loving it.
- Hmm... but it's getting late. Look, the stars are out. I think we should go back now.
- Yes, the stars are out. And the night is lovely. I wonder if we could walk a little further.

It was getting narrower. And she was beginning to get worried about safety. She was beginning to get worried about fall. She was looking down at the sea. On my part, I was looking up at the stars. And at her.

While she was thinking, I was wondering.

I had no idea that something had gotten into her mind.

- I think we should stop now. We'll fall if we walk further.
- Let's hold each other. We'll not fall then.
- We'll surely fall then.

She smiled the way she smiles, beautifully, and meaningfully. I acknowledged the beauty but pretended not to understand the meaning. I pretended innocence. I wanted the life to go on like that. I didn't want anything to change.

That something had started to work on her mind, and on my unsuspecting happiness.

- I am loving it. But I'm afraid we'll get drowned.
- How come? We are among clouds. Water is nowhere near.

I was too happy to think too much about anything. And I didn't want her to think too much either. We were walking together, we were happy, and nothing else mattered.

Life went on like dream, for a few more dreamy minutes, till that happened. One of the stones she had stepped on lost its ground and fell into the deep reality of sea. The fall was as silent as death, and it was sinister in its premonition. It was just a fall, but there was something surreal about it.

Feelings began to get clouded by Fear. The change began to take place. To mark the beginning, the clouds of fear issued forth a frightful thunderbolt.

- I am sorry I came.

She steadied herself and turned back, her face hardened with a determination to go back to the lamp-posts. She was not the same person anymore. She was still with me, but I had already started to miss her. I was left alone with a stranger who wanted to leave, who wanted to leave stars for lamp-posts! My starry dream was turning into a lamp-post reality! And I could do nothing about it. To my dismay, it occurred to me that what I wanted to do didn't carry much weight in the larger scheme of things.

I was standing deserted like a fool, losing my respect, losing my fundamental rights. In no time, the simplest of things became complicated and difficult for me. I wanted to look back. But I couldn't. I wanted to say something to her. But I couldn't. My voice had lost its dignity, its power!

I was burning in shame. I wanted to break my frustrated heart. That was easy. I could do that. And I did that. I looked ahead - the road was still wide enough for solo walk. In my despair, in my desperation, in my self-hatred, I kept on walking, unable to forget my irrelevance, unable to forgive my disgraceful irrelevance in my own life.

I kept on walking alone, in a desperate need to restore my relevance to myself. I had to walk though the night didn't look lovely anymore. The loveliness had walked away to the lamp-posts. And the stars had gone back. What lied ahead was just a dark night, a solitary walk, and a silent fall. But I was not afraid of fall. I had to keep on walking, in order to keep myself from falling in my own eyes.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Let's Go Party


Man has selected a point on Earth's elliptical trajectory, randomly, but seriously. As soon as the earth reaches that random point, he bursts out in a serious celebration - the annual calendar changing ceremony.

Thousands of people wait for that moment. The moment that is unbearably banal, yet special. The moment that brings no surprise, but oddly - lots of sensation. The moment that changes nothing but mood. The suspension-of-logic moment. The mob-mentality moment. However, the ruling moment, the lucky moment, the princely moment, for which countless other moments wait on, hands tied to their back. The moment the hands of clocks hit that moment, all of them jump with a boundless joy - Happy New Year - believing that their joyful jump will bring them more joy in the new year.

Common man's superstition standing cheerfully on Copernicus' science.

For the whole 24 hours, as the earth turns, the hands of clock keep on hitting at 12, and people keep on jumping with joy, as it happens. A gigantic jump-wave rises from Japan (land of rising jump) and travels west-ward... till it comes round and reaches the east-most shores. In the meanwhile, world ubiquitously witnesses a curious synchronization of jumping-with-joy with ticking-of-clock!

A spectacular show for the aliens.

Thinking of it, mankind has an amazing ability to be happy on pre-determined occasions - on "Happy Days" - on Festivals, which have only mythological relevance, and little personal relevance. However, fun is the dress code for all on festivals, and "Have Fun" is the categorical imperative. Wily or Nilly, all of us "have fun" on festivals. Those who don't feel any particular joy on festivals must feign it. There is no escape from fun but one - and that leads to isolation.

Feigning is still fine with me. That's civilization.

And what's more? Go get a life.

In the rage of happiness, man-kind wrecks the most unkind vengeance on poor animal-kind. Customarily, whenever man gets happy, he takes out his dagger, goes out and comes back happily with mutilated body of an animal dangling dead in his blood-stained hand. In no time, the body is skinned and chopped in hundred happy pieces. With the blood of killed animal, he happily red-washes his Happy Day. Red has been the traditional color of every human festival.

The next standard item in the standard festival protocol is getting drunk, which is usually followed by a wild boogie-woogie - besotted bodies rocking and rolling and banging heads on deafeningly loud beats of drums, till they abandon their senses for the Devil to take. In the steam rising from the dance floor, bodies get warmed up for the heat of last rites. Bodies running around fire, fire running around bodies. Fire dancing on bodies, bodies dancing on fire. Smell of smoke filling the air. Sound of hysteria filling the soul.

Bang Bang Boom Boom.

By the time the dythramb reaches its crescendo, the demon-men and demon-women, with horns grown on their heads, fail to hear anything, except the infernal signals received by their horn-radars, to ultimate pleasure of Dionysus.

Saturday, December 06, 2008

Success = Failure


Success = Failure

The difference between success and failure lies only in what is seen and what is hidden. We see all the pros of success, but not its cons. And we see all the cons of failure, but not its pros. And we conclude that cons of success and pros of failure do not exist.

But they do. They are not seen. But they do exist. And if looked properly, they can be seen also.

Does that make failure any more pleasant? No. I am not saying that. There is no doubt that failure is unpleasant. But it is not always as bad as it is considered. And success is not always that good. This sounds odd. But this is not as odd as it sounds.

Life is not that straight-forward as we take it to be. It take unexpected turns, and what wait at those turns - surprises!

Those who fail may not immediately appreciate the hidden pros of failure. But those who succeed do realize the hidden cons of success, the nuggets of failure stuffed in success - they call it cost of success. Often the price that they pay is too much for what they get, and perhaps that's why they are not as happy as we expect them to be. Look around yourself and you'd know what I am talking about. Or better, look inside.

From happiness point of view, there is not much difference between success and failure.

Even from freedom point of view, the equation holds. You may not know what it means to walk unobserved on the street with your girl-friend. Sachin Tendulkar does know it. Ask him how much can he pay to be a common man for a day, to be able to sit at Chaupati without getting bogged-down by demands of autographs and photographs.

Open your eyes and look around - few things can be more cruel to a man than his success. I was watching Fashion, and the equation flashed before my eyes : Success = Failure.

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If you kill one, you are a killer. If you kill thousand, you are Alexander.

I wonder why do we respect success. What makes success respectable?

We respect what we consider good. But there is nothing inherently good or bad in success. Success has little to do with Good and Bad, with Morality. Someone can successfully kill someone, and someone can successfully save someone - and both can be successful in their respective goals. Success is all about execution, not about intention, not about goal. Consequently, Hitler is no less successful than Gandhi! You must have heard - nothing succeeds like success!

Success involves interplay of acquisition (in foreground) and sacrifice (in background). What you sacrifice and what you acquire don't matter. 'What' doesn't matter. 'How much' matters. You can sacrifice peace to acquire wealth. Or vice versa. You can do either successfully, since success is amoral.

And since success is amoral, we disregard morality when we respect success. And that should come as a surprise to any conscientious society. The take away point - Context is important.

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Management Mantra:- Convince. Confuse. Corrupt.

Carrot and Stick - Success is beyond Good and Bad. But every system super-imposes Good and Bad on success to manage people smoothly and run itself successfully. That's why good success is awarded and encouraged. Good success is as good as success and Bad success is as bad as failure, which brings disapproval and shame.

Every system think for its own - economic system or family system. So we must think on our own. We must not be confused. Words are treacherous, so we must be cautious.

Growth involves 'being'. And success involves 'doing' and 'having'. So success has more to do with efficiency and possession than with growth. But don't we usually confuse efficiency with intelligence, and possession with growth? We must realize that efficiency does not mean intelligence, and possession does not mean growth.

Moreover, since efficiency is mechanical in nature, the pursuit of efficiency is likely to impede the growth of intelligence, which is anything but mechanical. Similarly, and more often than not, the pursuit of possession impedes growth.

An ass in an ass, in Birthday suit or in Armani suit. And a man is a man.

Man is made complete. He grows with time, and growth is natural, inevitable, and individual. He doesn't have to grow like someone else to feel good about himself. But often he is made to feel otherwise - "beta, bade hoke kya banoge?" How does one answer a question like that? How does one know that in advance? How does a bud know how it will look like after it will have bloomed into a flower? This attitude prefers certainties of past over mysteries of future. This attitude is mechanical to the core, and tries to engineer life - to plan and program life because it allows a better control over life. But isn't it foolish, and futile, to control something as random as life? And isn't a controlled life a lifeless life?

How does it matter if it is successful or not?

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Success: Meaning? Immortality?
Man can not digest meaninglessness. He can not believe that his existence is merely incidental. His being rebels against this thought. He seeks meaning in meaninglessness, order in disorder, constantly, desperately.

Man dreads death. He longs to live forever. But since death is the only certainty in life, he seeks to live in something - in somebody or in something. He writes his name on stones. He likes to read his name in magazines. He fathers children, and he likes to father companies.

The two roads meet at a point - meaning in immortality. The old History book is the place to be - that's success!

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Survival of the fittest.
But History has limited seats in its room - birth of Competition. Envy. Rivalry. Survival of the fittest. Survival not on earth, but in the pages of old History book. remember - that's the place to be!

Now many have to lose if one has to win. Many have to die if one has to survive.

"Macedonia is too small for you", Phillip said. And Alexander the Great began his great journey to get rid of his unbearably claustrophobic country.

"Europe is a mole-hill", lamented Napoleon and set out on his odyssey to arid deserts of Africa, and then to ice-cold hills of Alps.

One died young in Babylon; other died defeated, and was buried in unmarked tomb in Helena.

However, they got their seats in History room. We know their names. Nothing else matters. Alexander was incredibly good at killing people, and he didn't want to waste his talent. After all talent is talent, and it must be acknowledged. Why should we always seek value in talent? Don't we keep books of records - who spits farthest, who eats how many lizards etc?

Napoleon was a great emperor, whose fiery ambition was fueled by his shame for his common background. Looking at him it seems that ambition essentially stems from a sense of smallness, a shame, a complex. Ambition - one's desire to be someone who one is not. Ambition - self hate. What else? Why would he wander to places he neither loved not hated? Why would he go uninvited, unwanted? And why would he win when he didn't know what to be done after winning? Did he need all that? Ambition - first cousin of Greed the Deadly Sin. Ambition, I believe, is an unfortunate disease, which can not be cured by any medicine, any achievement, any conquest. Those who live with it die with it. Ask Josephine. Didn't Napoleon leave her - his first and last red-blooded love - to marry another woman, only to be accepted by the blue-blooded nobility. The poor commoner emperor! Though he lived in riches, his penury lived inside him.

Instead of finding happiness in ordinariness, man strives for extra-ordinariness. And in vain. This quest of extra-ordinariness is the cause of all human strife. And if taken to its logical conclusion - it ends with Nietzsche's Superman and Eugenics and Hitler's purity of race and ethnic cleansing.

For those who are punished for their ordinariness, Success is Revenge. Rich man's peace gives way to poor man's Justice.

Good old Edmond Dantes, an ordinary man who didn't demand too much from life, who occupied a very small space in the world, and who minded his own business, till all that happened, decided to slough his ordinariness, to expand himself, and to assert himself on the world.

He avenged his ordinariness. Success, like Revenge, is about expansion, and penetration. Like Revenge, Success is disgustingly masculine.

However, the wheel of success rolls on, making infinite vicious circles of failure.

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Micro Success versus Macro Success.

My organization needs innovation for success. My question is - does mankind need innovation? My answer is - No. I believe that the technology that we already have is good enough for us. We don't need any more of it. All we need is more efficient application of available technology - we need better management and better governance.

Let's list down top 5 contemporary problems of mankind and let's see if they can be resolved by innovation.

1. Loneliness
2. Death and Disease
3. Disparity
4. Pollution
5. War and Terrorism

I'm afraid some of these problems are rather aggravated by technology. Was Hiroshima or 9/11 possible without technology? Can porn industry survive without technology? Mankind is still nursing the wounds of modernity, and mass production. We don't want any more of it.

But then the success of my organization depends on innovation.


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The idea is to redefine success, so that it is better than failure, not just nominally, but in real terms. The idea is to redefine successful, so that he is any different from what he is today - a pathetic loser.

The essence of work is growth, and leisure. If Man doesn't have leisure, he would not be able to wonder. He would not be able to realize his potential as a human being.

And he would not be able to play with his kids.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Responsibility

I have noted that Responsibility is used in following contexts :-

1. Existential - A man is responsible for his actions.

A man is (condemned to be) free. He has choices, and he has freedom to take decisions. He has to take decisions. And he is responsible for the consequences of his decisions.

2. Moral -

a) Duty - "This is your responsibility to see to it that none of them crosses the bridge alive. May God bless you."

When used in a right tone, this word can set wrongs right. This word can legitimatize things that can not be legitimatized otherwise.

When you entrust someone with responsibility, he feels grown-up, and important. It is not hard to manage them then.

b) Privilege - "We are happy with your dedication. You'll be given additional responsibility."

Instead of a task, this becomes an award. Farming itself becomes harvest. A farmer is given a responsibility of farming, and he happily accepts it in hope of a harvest. In his mind, farming is no different than harvest.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Maya


Art Gallary:-

First painting - showing a woman with a huge pair of melons.

Second painting - showing a headless woman with three melons, the third one is seen in place of the missing head.

Third painting - showing a man with a cannon between his thighs, and other men looking at him with awe.

Fourth painting - showing a woman with a globe rolling inside the dark hollow between her outstretched thighs.

STOP IT. STOP IT. IT'S GROSS. GROSS. GROSS.

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Plato had said that art imitates nature. I am not sure about that, or the reverse of that, but art does attempt to capture the elusive, the mysterious, the indescribable, and the unspeakable.

It is often politically incorrect to speak the unspeakable. It is often indiscreet to hold mirror to an ugly face, especially when the face is pally with a pair of punch-happy hands. In the mentioned case, with or without vulgarity, our artist is accused of depicting human bodies in a distorted fashion. But he was not depicting human bodies as they are made, but as they are seen, and as they exist in our collective consciousness. Can you dare to differ? Is human attention evenly distributed over a human body? Don't we make a fetish of female breasts, and don't we worship male members? The truth is that the distortion happens in our mind first, and only then in an artist's works.

When we convict him of 'sickness', we should remember that out-of-proportion involvement with anything is a sickness, which distorts our vision, our understanding, and our judgment. And this holds true for anything and everything.

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That - distortion of vision, understanding, and judgment - is called Maya - one of the million ordinary words of our colloquial language which contains extraordinary depths of philosophy within. There are other connotations of this word, but those are beyond the scope of present discussion.

In my limited understanding, Maya is caused by the following -

1. Ignorance -- Watch Matrix to understand this.

Our mind is narrowed by the immediate and the instant. A holds the tail of an elephant and gets convinced that it is a rope. B claims that it is a pillar. C believes that it is a wall. They don't listen to one another. And they conclude wrongly.

Even listening to other doesn't help. In a Panchatantra tale, a farmer listens to thugs and gets persuaded that the goat that he is carrying on his shoulder is a dog. In the end, he loses his goat to the thugs.

We are ignorant, and we pay for our ignorance throughout our life. But we hardly think. We defend our sloth and attend to the most immediate practicality. Few 'impractical' daredevils told us that earth was not flat, and they told us that it was earth that revolved around the sun and not the other way round.

See! What we see is still the same, but our sight is lighted by knowledge. We grope in darkness and make ourselves miserable. And suddenly a flash of light shows us the truth - that it is an elephant and not a rope, a pillar, or a wall.

2. Attachment -- In Geeta, Krishna warns us of two things - A. Ego (sense of agency), and B. Attachment. It is attachment which is source of anxiety and fear and then anger, which clouds our judgment.

How ironical it is - we place value in things, and then the same things start to control and dominate us!

I'd read the line written above once again - we place value in things, and then the same things start to control and dominate us!

Most of the things we think we need are the things we don't need. We run after those things that are wanted by people around us - gadgets etc. Similarly, we don't give up something that we don't want because we fear that someone else might pick that up and run away, making us stand like a fool. But we make a fool of ourselves by running after things we hardly care for, and holding something we would rather be dispensed of. Without being unselfish, we live for others. Well not for others, just keeping others in mind. How many things we do are things that we would do without letting others know?

Our crowd mentality is further aggravated by comparisons and competitiveness. The award system and myth of something called success further confuse, and control, our already scattered thoughts.

It is important to realize that success is not a condition for happiness. From pure happiness point of view, success is not always better than failure. Sometimes, it is worse than failure. The pursuit of success leaves the senses paralyzed. No wonder a successful man is a miserable man, because the ambition needed for success is nothing but a deep-seated feeling of inadequacy.

This feeling of inadequacy makes up one's ego, which needs to achieve a goal to feel adequate - therefore attachment - therefore Maya, and misery.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Have Fun


The wait is over - this Friday is FunGaMa day. (Applause)

It's good to have fun, and John wants you to have fun. So all of us will have fun. (Applause)

OK. Let's discuss the plan now. The fungama will begin at 9.00 AM sharp. I want everybody to be in the campus by then. Don't be late, and Don't be absent. John himself is coming with us and he will be there with us for the whole day. (Applause) Managers will make the roll call and make sure that their team is present, and present on time. I don't want to hear any excuse.

The dress code for fungama will be ... (pause) ... a Smile. (Applause) Make sure you wear a smile on your face. That's mandatory. (smile) If we catch any of you without smile, we will make him or her dance. Dancers don't have to be happy, they will have to sing. If any of you find anyone without a smile, report to the fun team. The fun team will make sure you dance and sing throughout the day.

I would like to congratulate the fun team for their tremendous effort. (Applause) You can see the fun schedule on the home page. There are many fun events, and your participation is mandatory. There are exciting prizes for winners. John himself will give away the prizes. Let's see who takes away the titles of Mr Funny and Miss Funny this time. No, you can not get both, can you? (smile) Losers? Well, they will have to do what winners want them to.

The fun team has laid out a funny rule this time, which we will follow. As soon as you hear the command - Have Fun!, you have to start having fun. But before you start having fun, you have to wait for the command. Nobody will have fun before hearing the command. You can not have fun in your own funny way.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

The Sense of Nonsense


A friendship of childhood is enduring friendship. Only children make good friends, adults make networks. If that's true, what to do to make friends? It's simple - be a child.

I agree that mutual respect is the root of every human relationship (ignore commercial or political alliances for a while). No relation can survive without respect. But being touchy about it hardly helps. We must not confuse criticism with disrespect. We often do that, don't we? And we must not judge after passing the judgment. Once a person wins our respect, we should relax and let the person relax. After all, none of us is infallible, and all of us need to be forgiven.

I often think that we get mature without knowing what maturity is. Maturity can not possibly mean doing non-serious things seriously. Growing up can not possibly mean being petty and selfish. If it is like that, then what's so mature about it? Also, we forget that we are ageless; adulthood is only a state of mind, which can be (and must be) suspended for a while. We must allow ourselves a parole, to go out of our cells and handshake with other inmates.

I have realized that there is lot of sense in nonsense. At least it makes sense in friendship. Two people make good friends only when they do lot of nonsense together. No wonder we make good pals in our graduation and fail to do the same in our post graduation.

Monday, September 15, 2008

On Dating


Three things torment people who are otherwise not tormented - 1. Boredom, 2. Loneliness, and 3. Memories.

If we take care of the first two, the last one takes care of itself. You forget nothing, but you learn to live with it.

Boredom is a petty emotion. It is a sign of sloth, mental as well as physical. And sloth is a sickness that can not be cured by bed rest. It is cured only by activity, which is followed by an interest (in that activity) and enthusiasm, the antithesis of boredom.

A bored person is an empty person who craves for something to fill his emptiness, someone to entertain him. He lacks imagination. A bored person feels lonely (as long as he is alone*) and desperate. So 'something' could be anything, and 'someone' could be anyone. Boredom is promiscuous; it lacks character.

On the other hand, a lonely person feels lonely, but not bored. He sometimes gets bored only in company of boring people, but not in isolation, not in his own company. Loneliness is not empty; on the contrary, loneliness is a longing to share. It is a longing to share all that have been earned in long lonely nights - the stuff poetry is made of. It is a longing to share bright thoughts and stupid dreams with someone who can understand. It is a painful longing to express, to be understood, to love, and to be loved.

Loneliness is the stinging tail of solitude. It is painful, but it has passion, it has patience, and it has character. It is a choice that few deserve and fewer make.

But, after all, being lonely hurts. And there is nothing noble in it.

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Loneliness is a congenital problem, but it has been further aggravated by modern lifestyle. How?

With the number of channels on TV, and the types of personalities have multiplied manifold in recent times. We are what we see. We are what we choose. Among so many options kept on shelves, we choose some at the cost of many others, knowingly or otherwise. And we know little about the options we don't choose, and we know little about the people who choose them. In case we do know, we look down on them. And in case we look up to them, we hold a grudge against them because we have to look up to them. They are either strangers to us, or adversaries.

It sounds complicated, because it is complicated. We are living in complicated times. The profusion of options in market has brought the finer elements of our personalities on fore. And we link our ego with the things we consume. We have bar-coded ourselves. We talk about Identity. We talk about Taste. And these things matter to us like never before.

I have already talked about Identity in my earlier posts. The pursuit of identity ends in a frozen isolation. And taste takes a toll on our tolerance. Taste comes in pair, the other being distaste. Taste means judgment, and discrimination. I have a taste for old Hindi film melodies, and I can not stand rock at all. My hatred to noise is uncompromising, and unconditional. Worse, I am helpless in my hatred. And that hardly makes me very friendly to my friends.

I mean to say that no matter how cosmopolitan we may be, our personalities are more defined, and more confined, than those of our parents. And that makes us lonelier than they were. This situation is not helped by other things, like cut-throat competition, aggression, ambition, and our all-consuming working hours. We stay away from our family, we never see our neighbors except in morning (in the parking lot), and our interaction with our colleagues is strained by professional discretion.

And then nights come with a darkness stretched all over. Never mind the networking, but when we want to talk, we hardly find anyone in our entire contacts list. I have seen myself browsing through my list and then tossing the phone on bed in frustration. I have realized that cell phone is useless when we really feel like talking.

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Since modernity is inescapable, the antithesis of loneliness can only be found within the same set of premises.

I will come directly to the point. It's late and I've to sleep to wake up to go to office.

A few days back the topic of dating popped up, and it was met with disapproval. I wondered what's wrong in it?

Dating is a western concept, isn't?

True, it is. But then so many things are. So much so that it is hard to say what is ours and what is not. In a mixed (and messed-up) culture like ours, what is ours anyway? Considering our work-style, fun-style, and the whole lifestyle, the argument against foreign doesn't hold too much of a relevance.

At the same time that does not mean that we should run after everything exotic. That would be equally idiotic. The point is - that is not relevant here.

The point is - things change with time, and values that are incompatible with lifestyle will be idealized, and idolized, but will not be adopted. Suppressed by society, individuals will resort to corruption, deceit, hypocrisy, and perversion. Don't we see this happening everywhere?

Dating - hunting women, isn't?

That's not the right word. It can not be denied that there is some youthful playfulness in dating, but youth can be playful without being disgusting and malicious. Besides, youthful playfulness is better than middle-age perversion. It is better than post-marriage regret and breaking-up of family. And for us Indians, nothing can be more disastrous than that.

Dating just means meeting a person of opposite sex to see if it can work out. Since we are different people, with different values, taste, and aspirations, it is not easy for us to bump into equally different person, especially in our busy everyday life. And so it is not easy for us to step into a committed relationship, which requires certain compatibility to keep two people together in this crazy age of liberation. Result -- loneliness.

It's time dating is taken seriously by young urban India, and by their parents. It's time it is not just tolerated, but understood. It's time it is allowed, encouraged, and institutionalized by our society. Let's not be sneaky about our most compelling desire - the desire for a human touch. Dating can solve some of our problems if it is carried out properly. I think its time has arrived.



* which means he does not feel lonely. A bored person confuses boredom with loneliness.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Sajjad Hussain - The Mystery Musician


Sajjad Husain was one of the most interesting music director in the Indian Cinema. His contemporaries agreed that he was the best of the best! So great was he that even Madan Mohan lifted a tune from Husain's old song, and that Madan Mohan song went onto to become a great hit!

He was no ordinary talent. Such people come rarely and show flashes of genius before they become victims of their own eccentricity. Ghulam Mohammad, Pakeezah's Music Director was another. The text below is taken from this page, with a view to popularize the story and the genius of Sajjad Husain - the only Original music director that Hindi Cinema ever saw!!

Two incidents which best explain Husain's personality and genius:

One: how, during a recording, he called out tartly to Lata Mangeshkar struggling at the mike with one of his intricate compositions, "Yeh Naushad miyan ka gaana nahin hai, aap ko mehnat karni padegi."

Two: how at a music directors' meet, eschewing the customary diplomacy of that era, he walked up to Madan Mohan and demanded belligerently, "What do you mean by stealing my song ?" ("Yeh hawa yeh raat yeh chandani" from his 'Sangdil' had just found a new avatar as "Tujhe kya sunaoon main dilruba" in Madan Mohan's 'Aakhri Dao'.)

These two hallmarks of Sajjad's identity -- his penchant for complex, many-layered compositions and his singularly forthright nature -- stuck to him like a second skin throughout his life. And they combined in a rather unfortunate manner to diminish the potential brilliance of a career that could have ranked among the most celebrated.

It was not the intricacy of his compositions that put Sajjad at a disadvantage -- he worked, after all, in an era that belonged to music directors with erudition and firm classical foundations. Where he lost out was in his handling of producers and directors, sometimes musical illiterates, who sought to simplify or alter his tunes -- his contemporaries dealt with such "suggestions" rather more tactfully than Sajjad, who would immediately [get] up and walk out of the film.

"He was an extremely talented man, very knowledgeable about music, but his temperament was his undoing," says Naushad. "Even if someone made a minor suggestion, he'd turn on him and say, 'What do you know about music ?' He fought with almost everyone. Because of this, he sat at home most of his life and wasted his talent. But the body of work he has produced, small as it might be, ranks among the best in Hindi film music."

Music historian Raju Bharatan, whose interaction with Sajjad goes back a long way, has a somewhat different insight into the man. "It's true he wouldn't let musically unqualified people interfere with his work,but the popular perception of him being stubborn is not right," he says. "Sajjad had a rational explanation for every action of his. You had to know him to recognise his tremendous erudition, the fact that he was far superior to every other music director in the industry."

This erudition, the cornerstone of Sajjad's work, is recalled affectionately by Naushad.

"He took pride in his ustaadi," he says. "He'd tell the producer, 'I've created a tune which even Lata can't sing.' And the producer would say, 'If Lata can't sing it, how do you expect the common man to sing it ?' But at the same time he did create simple, yet extraordinary, compositions -- for example, "Yeh kaisi ajab daastaan ho gayi hai" from 'Rustam Sohrab'."

Indeed, as far as Sajjad's formidable talent goes, there are no two opinions. Madan Mohan, when confronted with the charge of plagiarism, reportedly told him, "I take pride in the fact that I lifted your tune, not that of some second- or third-rater." Anil Biswas, himself hailed as a creative genius, declared in an interview that Sajjad was the only original composer in Hindi films. "All of us, including myself, turned to some source for inspiration," he said. "This, Sajjad never needed to do. Each note of the music he composed was his own." If Sajjad was known primarily for his film scores, there was also another facet to his art -- he was an accomplished albeit self-taught mandolin player who could stun even purists with his ability to play Hindustani classical music on this rather uninspiring western instrument.

His performances at concerts alongside the biggest names in classical music spurred rave reviews, and connoisseurs would be agog at his ability to coax the meend, for instance, out of the instrument of play entire ragas with the help of the tuning key. "In the hands of Ustad Sajjad Husain," said a review of a Madras concert in 1982, "the mandolin bore the halo of a Ravi Shankar sitar or [an] Ali Akbar sarod. His playing is that of a mighty maestro."

On July 21, the 79-year-old composer breathed his last. The leitmotif of his lifetime, isolation, cast its shadow over his death too, when, with the notable exception of Khayyam and Pankaj Udhas, nobody else from the film industry bothered to turn up to pay him their last respects. "It hurt," admits his son, "but what is far more important is that to the last day of his life, my father was happy. There was no bitterness, no regrets. He could have been hugely successful, made piles of money, but the only thing he wanted was to be acknowledged as a great musician, and to live life on his own terms. And I think he achieved that."

Read more about Sajjad Hussain here. And read what Lata Mangeshkar says about him here.

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Islam vs Secularism


Secularism is defined in the Webster dictionary as: "A system of doctrines and practices that rejects any form of religious faith and worship" or "The belief that religion and ecclesiastical affairs should not enter into the function of the state especially into public education."

There is no doubt that secularism contradicts Islam in every aspect. They are two different paths that never meet; choosing one means rejecting the other. Hence, whoever chooses Islam has to reject secularism. In the following, we go in the details of explaining why.

1- First, secularism makes lawful what Allah has made unlawful.

The Rule of Allah (Shari`ah) is compulsory and has basic laws and regulations that cannot be changed. Some of these laws are concerned with the acts of worship, the relations between men and women, etc.

What is the position with regard to these laws?

Secularism makes adultery lawful if the male and the female are consenting adults.

As for Riba (interest on money), it is the basis of all financial transactions in secular economies. On the contrary, Allah says (s.2 A. 278): "O you who believe, fear Allah and leave what comes from Riba if you are believers. If you do not do so, then wait for a war from Allah and His Messenger."

As for alcohol, all secular systems allow the consumption of alcohol and make selling it a lawful business.

2- Second, secularism is clear unbelief (Kufr).

Secularism is based on separating religion from all the affairs of this life and hence, it rules by law and regulations other than Allah's laws. Hence, secularism rejects Allah's rules with no exception and prefers regulations other than Allah's and His Messenger's. In fact, many secularists claim that Allah's laws might have been suitable for the time they were revealed but are now outdated.

As a result, most of the laws governing the daily affairs of life in the countries ruled by secular systems contradict Islam. Allah says (S.5 A.50): "Do they seek a judgment of Ignorance? But, who, for a people whose faith is assured, can give better judgment than Allah?"

Ibn Katheer said in the Tafseer of this verse that Allah is denouncing those who reject His ruling and accept other rulings that are not based on the Shari`ah of Allah. Whoever does so is indeed a non-believer. Indeed, belief in Allah can never go with the acceptance of other than His rulings in one's heart. Allah says (S.5 A.44): "If any do fail to judge by what Allah has revealed, they are non-believers."

From the above, the status of secularism and its relation to Islam are clear. But the ignorance about the Islamic truth is still dominating the Muslim's mind. Most secular systems repeat slogans like "no religion in politics and no politics in religion" or "religion is for Allah, and the state is for the people." Such sayings portray their view of Islam as a religion to be practiced in the mosque only, and that it should not be allowed to rule life outside the mosque. Furthermore, they try to deceive people with democratic slogans like "personal freedom" and "people governing people." That means that people come first and no place is made for the ruling of Allah.

This is why secularism is clear Kufr, this is why secular systems have no legality and authority and should be rejected by Muslims.

Courtesy - www.islaam.com

For more information about this, read this, and this.


Sunday, August 24, 2008

Giving In


"You need not say a word. Let your character come forth to your defense, and speak on your behalf in the hours of trial." I used to believe and follow this religiously. Everyone liked me then, when I was a teenager.

I am the same person, but today my whole being revolts against this thought. Why should I care for this trial? Is my life nothing but a mere preparation for an unknown inquisition which lurks somewhere in future, and for which I need to collect evidences and witnesses who would testify to my uprightness? Why should I live in this dark shadow of fear? Isn't fear a dehumanizing emotion?

And was my idea of character any different from a mere collection of my impression on others? I was out to make an image. But I not aware that images come costly, and their maintenance was even costlier. Plus it was demeaning to sell yourself in order to buy your image. How dreary it is to be interpreted by others! How scary it is to be subjected to others' opinion about yourself! How suffocating it is to explain yourself to others! How mechanical it is to be consistent! All this to keep an image!

And all this when judgment has already been written in favor of the powerful! Keeping the judgment hidden inside the drawer, the judge sits through the entire farce and amuses himself. No court has ever given justice to anyone; the best of them may afford alms of kindness to those who inspire pity. Thanks, but no thanks. No courtroom drama for me.

I will not answer their questions. If they insist, I will try to obfuscate them, and dodge them as long as I can. Since I don't play mind games with lesser people, I'll suspend my logic and give in to my imagination. I will talk nonsense with random burst of passion. I will speak in a language they wouldn't understand, and grin at their face, thereby confessing crimes I have never committed. I will pretend like a genius-gone-gaga. I'll give a blank look to the lawyer, and then I'll complain of a queer smell in courtroom. By the way, if the judge happens to be an old man, I'll let him know that I am an inveterate atheist. It will be fun to hear from him that that's irrelevant to the case. If the judge happens to be a woman, I will like to point out that her little ear ring sways wildly and diverts my attention from the truth. *

It sounds weird but I feel an urge to rebel against this tyranny of feedback. Sometimes I deliberately do things to invite people's disapprobation. The image of Jesus Christ comes to my mind. What a man he was! They kicked him, mocked at him, crucified him with petty thieves, and worst of all - left his dead body to rot out in open. I wonder what held his head high. Did he live for honor? No. Perhaps he never thought in terms of honor and shame. A life in pursuit of honor ends up becoming a life of slavery, which is more shameful than anything else. Fear from ridicule makes life ridiculous. Damned are those who can't take ridicule. They are not capable of being anything of any worth. They will be ruled by carrot and stick. As far as I am concerned, I know I can not stop the fools to judge me, but I can not allow the fools to rule me either. **

************************************

An actress is not fully accepted in film-factory unless she sheds her clothes. Clothes are considered a symbol of self-indulgence, and individuality, which has no place in a meat market. Meat need not have a face. Meat must show humility to its consumers. Every bit of young actress' reluctance is relished by the self-assured market-men, who know that everything comes with a price tag, and a breaking point. They use price as a means of psychological pressure, and savor the silent spectacle of her breaking down, the longer the better. In pressure, our mind invents excuses and makes us fit enough to survive. And the fit person, an apostate, not only survives but also becomes an passionate supervisor of the ruling cynicism. That's how cynicism works.

I have seen people around me giving in to things they otherwise disapprove, like smoking and drinking, only to be accepted in a group. And the group hates those who stay put on their grounds. The group hates the vanities of man - the so-called values (and the fetish of face)! They use seclusion as a means - they lock you in a remand room where nobody talks to you except the walls, till you give in.

*********************

* That reminds me of this supposedly serious meeting with my HR manager. I was not in a serious mood though. So I took her on a roller-coaster. She must have expected another banal intercourse with a java guy. She was pleasantly disoriented. Audacity! mixed with middle-age chivalry worked like a charm. None of us can resist entertainment, especially when it is followed by flattery! That was risky, but the risk was worth taking it.

Warning - Do whatever you want to, but don't forget the code of sophistication. More importantly, never try this with a Scorpio, or a Capricorn, no matter how cool or hot she looks. You'll have to regret it.

** What will people say? attitude bugs me to no end. It saddens me to see that we seek public opinion even in (ironically, only in) private matters. Even love is not a matter of will anymore, it has become a mandate.

Lest We Forget


All of them might not have been able to win gold for India, but they are worth their weight in gold. Our olympians have showed us Taare Zameen Par in real life. By sheer power of will, they have fought and won over thousand odds. Despite their loss in tournament, they are all winners. They are all heroes and heroines.

Kudos to all of them.


Nothing succeeds like success. Hope their success succeeds. Hope we start looking at sports as a practical career option for our children. Hope government and corporate invest their resources to shape the talents of thousands of anonymous Sushils and Vijenders, because every parent is not like Mrs and Mr Bindra. India needs more Bhiwanis.

Apart from infrastructure, sports needs visibility. We can not rely on Olympics and commonwealth games only. It's time more tournaments are organized and media gives them more coverage, thereby creating a competition among the states. India has more Bhiwanis, only waiting to be unearthed.

Rajdeep Sardesai comes up with an idea - "why don't each of the IPL team owners adopt one sport and make it part of their business plan?" This idea is not far-fetched. After all, it was none other than L.N.Mittal who had steeled the chances of our players. Mittal Champions Trust (MCT) has been supporting 14 players who participated in Beijing Olympics. Abhinav Bindra was supplied not only with cartridges, but also with physical trainer and mental therapist. Akhil Kumar had been sent to London for medical treatment when he had broken his wrist. Thanks to their success, MCT is willing to extend its support to more number of sports and sportsmen (and sportswomen). Even BCCI can come forward and contribute to the impending renaissance.

In any case, let Beijing 2008 be a point of departure, not a point of arrival. We've won medals in martial games, now we know that we have got that in us. We want to win, and our desire is not short of strength. All we need is a professional approach in sports. Given the grit and spirit of our players, I'm sure we'll make a mark in London 2012.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Commentary from Coorg


14 August, 2008: We boarded on MMTS local at Hi-Tech City railway station to catch Bangalore Express, which was to depart at 19.00 from Kacheguda (Hyderabad). This is an overnight train with no pantry car, so it's better to carry food if you don't want to sleep hungry. Anyways, as soon as I stepped into the train, I was impressed by its brand new look. The leather-brown seats with matching curtains, cream colored walls, and the clean floor glittering with mica, created quite an aesthetic surrounding. Also, this bogey had an additional side berth, meaning more revenue for the railway. Laloo's team is indeed coming up with some innovative ideas and though most of them are only to fool people, I give him a thumbs up for this one.

15 August, 2008: We hit the Bangalore-Mysore highway at around 11.00. Our Scorpio was running at top speed; the weather, the cool breeze, and the greenery made our mood in no time.

The road after Mysore is not that great, but there is no dearth of greenery. By afternoon, we had reached Kushalnagar, which is home to thousands of refugees from Tibet.




It is a indeed a unique experience to see so many Buddhist monks in this part of India. At the same time it seems a trifle strange that they have chosen to settle so far from their homeland.

These thoughts vanish as soon as you enter the Golden Temple. The exterior is exotic enough, but it is the interior that is awe-inspiring. Three 60 feet tall statues welcome you and dazzle your eyes with golden brilliance. I gazed at the statues for sometime; but before the solemnity of the place seeped inside, my curiosity was roused by the elaborateness of arrangement. I tried to capture the magnificence of that place in my camera, without losing the details of decoration, only to feel frustrated.


We had lunch (which smelt funny), browsed some shops, chatted with their owners, and then moved from there. We reached Medikari in evening, booked a hotel and called it a day.

16 August, 2008: The day began with a drizzling, which didn't bother us too much. In fact, I will recommend you to visit Coorg in Monsoon only, because the place looks greener than ever.

We drove to Abbey's fall first. All you should not forget is to fold your pants before you go near the fall, lest leeches will stick to your body and will suck your blood leaving practically nothing for your boss. The fall was the largest I had ever seen. Its roar was audible from the road itself. The water crashed against the rocks and the vapor flew in air, making the drizzle superfluous.

We were under a misconception that rafting takes place in Talakaveri, the origin of Kaveri. Since I was disturbed by some unpleasant developments in my personal life of late, I was unable to do my homework properly. That does not mean that I regret going to Talakaveri. In monsoon, there is nowhere you can go in Coorg and regret. The way to Talakaveri was walled by dense forests, and coffee estates. We were literally among clouds. We could see them playing with winds, running over hills, like little children.

We had to miss Nagarahole National Park because of its timings. We were least interested in tourist points like Madikeri Fort and Raja Seat etc. There was no sun, and no sunset to be seen from Raja Seat. So we came back to our room, took our dinner followed by a stroll (which I enjoy more than anything else) and retired to our beds.

17 August, 2008: We were to miss elephant ride in Dobare because of timings again. We had thought of taking the ride after rafting, but we didn't know that the ride is given till 13.00 only. Anyways, we were interested in rafting and we didn't want to miss that.


We didn't miss that, thankfully.












We dressed up and posed with our paddles before setting off for our maiden rafting experience. We all were excited about it, but the flow in Kaveri was not very enthusiastic. If you ignore a few rapids in the way, the flow was looking more suitable for boating than for rafting. Anyways, half of the fun depends on things other than the flow of Kaveri. We made fun of the flow and dived into the river to redeem the value for our money. It was nice to lie down on water, facing the sky and ignoring our instructor's instructions. In the end, we were a happy lot.

We had to reach Bangalore by evening. So we had to wrap things up. We took lunch at a nearby restaurant, which served us simple South Indian meal. And that tasted better than all the North Indian food we had eaten throughout the trip.

Our last halt was at Nisargadhama, which is a sort of botanical garden. There was hardly anything of any particular interest for us. We walked about for sometime and then decided to push off from there.

Coorg will remind me of forests, and clouds running over the hills. The hills give you a sense of isolation from the noise of urban life, and a peace of mind. The silence of forests has a way of calling those who can hear the call. Let me hear the call again, I promise to go back again.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Companionship


What is this mystery - companionship?

Incredulity is the first thing I feel when I open my eyes. It's hard to believe what has happened. Things change so unexpectedly that it's hard to believe, as well as disbelieve, anything. What is relation when our relations are as fickle as our moods. They grow; and before we know, they fall sick and die.

You imposed yourself on me when I was at peace with myself. And you turned your back on me when I needed you the most. You have gone away and there is no hope of your coming back.* In my despair, your memories come to haunt me when I am lonely.

And I am always lonely. I nod while listening to others but I don't hear anything. I feel lost in a vast expansion of a limitless desert. There are no star in sky to show me way. I am confused. I only hope not to be corrupted by this confusion.

People try to convince me. But I am already convinced. Nothing is easier than convincing the mind. Mind finds honorable excuses for things that we do, and things that we don't. I also know that everything happens for the best. That's pretty obvious, isn't it? But convincing the mind doesn't soothe a wounded heart too much. I know I ought to be happy. But I am not. Nevertheless, I say I am happy. I feel something, and I say something else. Words are useless when we are sincere. We hardly understand others' words. We are all condemned not to be able to understand one another.

Life has a funny sense of justice. You see - life is easier for those who litter than for those who care to clean the litter. The former cheerfully exploit the weakness of the latter. Love is also a weakness, which is duly exploited as soon as it is detected in others. Civilization has made us clever enough to recognize trust, kindness, gentleness etc in other person and then exploit them to the last drop. In any relation, the one who loves less exploits more. But some of us still clean, and some of us still love. Isn't it funny?

Is it pain that I feel in my chest, or is it just a vacuum? Do I really miss your sweet nothings? Did I really take those sweet nothings seriously? I had never thought so. But I was wrong. I am bigger sucker than I had imagined myself to be.

I can imagine your pain, and the vacuum in your chest. But I can not feel your pain. I can feel only my pain. We can not feel each others' pain. The inability to feel each others' pain separates us, and often makes us distrustful to each other. But the pain itself - that unites us. The mutuality of suffering binds us in our separation. Can't you see a togetherness in our separation, a companionship in our fate? We can not meet but we are still companions, like two parallel rails of a railway track. We have to bear the weight of our fate, together, separately.

*your person can, but you can not. You, as you existed then, can not.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Anti-Dowry Laws: Instruments of Blackmail?


The Dowry Prohibition Act, was enacted with the intention of protecting wives from marital violence, abuse and extortionist dowry demands. However, the actual implementation of these laws has left a bitter trail of disappointment, anger and resentment in its wake, among the affected families.

The truth is, that there were adequate provisions in the IPC Sections 323, 324, 325 and 326 for use against anyone who assaults a woman or causes her injury. The Indian Penal Code was amended twice during the 1980s — first in 1983 and again in 1986 — to define special categories of crimes dealing with marital violence and abuse.

In 1983, Section 498A of the IPC defined a new cognizable offence, namely, "cruelty by husband or relatives of husband". This means that under this law the police have no option but to take action, once such a complaint is registered by the victim or any of her relatives. It prescribes imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and also includes a fine. The definition of cruelty is not just confined to causing grave injury, bodily harm, or danger to life, limb or physical health, but also includes mental health, harassment and emotional torture through verbal abuse. This law takes particular cognisance of harassment, where it occurs with a view to coercing the wife, or any person related to her, to meet any unlawful demand regarding any property or valuable security, or occurs on account of failure by her, or any person related to her, to meet such a demand.

During the same period, two amendments to the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961, enacted in 1984 and 1986, made dowry giving and receiving a cognizable offence. Even in this case, where a person is prosecuted for taking or abetting dowry, or for demanding dowry, the burden of proof that he had not committed the offence was placed on the accused. [Same in case of Rape. Imagine falsely being accused of offence like rape!]

However, no punitive provisions were added for those making false allegations or exaggerated claims. There is, of course, the law against perjury (lying on oath). But in India, the courts expect people to prevaricate and lawyers routinely encourage people to make false claims because such stratagems are assumed to be part of the legal game in India. Therefore, the law against perjury has hardly ever been invoked in India.

Section 406, to be invoked by the woman to file cases against her husband and in-laws for retrieval of her dowry prescribes imprisonment of upto three years for criminal breach of trust. Often, highly exaggerated or bogus claims are made by unscrupulous families who demand the return of more than was given as ‘stridhan’, using the draconian sections 498A and section 406 of the IPC as a bargaining tool.

Furthermore, another Section 304B was added to the IPC to deal with yet another new category of crime called “dowry death”. This section states that if the death of a woman is caused by burns or bodily injury, or occurs under abnormal circumstances, within seven years of her marriage and it is shown that just prior to her death she was subjected to cruelty by her husband or any relative of her husband, in connection with any demand for dowry, such a death would be called a “dowry death”, and the husband or relative would would be deemed to have caused her death. The burden of proof is shifted to the accused party. The basic spirit of Indian jurisprudence is that a person is presumed innocent till proven guilty. However, in all these cases the person is assumed guilty till proven innocent.

The person held guilty of a "dowry death" shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than seven years but which may extend to imprisonment for life. By inserting a new section 113B in the Indian Evidence Act, the lawmakers stipulated that in cases that get registered by the police as those of “dowry death”, the court shall presume that the accused is guilty unless he can prove otherwise. [Prey tell me how can anyone prove that? How dreadfully Kafkaesque!]

This is understandable in cases of death because the unnatural demise of a woman through suicide or murder is in itself proof that something was seriously wrong in the marriage. But problems arise when the same presumption applies to cases of domestic discord where the underlying cause of conflict is not necessarily the husband's violence, abuse or economic demands but due to the couple's inability to get along with each other.

The law was recast, heavily weighted in the woman’s favour, on the assumption that only genuinely aggrieved women would come forward to lodge complaints and that they would invariably tell the truth. In the process, however, the whole concept of due process of law had been overturned in these legal provisions dealing with domestic violence.

With the police as well as lawyers encouraging female complainants to use this as a necessary ploy to implicate their marital families, making them believe that their complaint will not be taken seriously otherwise. It has become a distinct trend to include dowry demands in every complaint of domestic discord or cruelty, even when dowry was not an issue at all. This has created an erroneous impression that all of the violence in Indian homes is due to a growing greed for more dowry. [Women indulged in adultery can control their husbands now, thanks to our law makers. ]

This tendency has received a further fillip with the enactment of 498 A, mentioning dowry demands seems to have become a common ritual in virtually all cases registered with the police or filed in court, misusing the provisions of sections 498A and 406. Even members of many women’s organisations themselves acknowledge such abuse. Things have come to this pass, not just due to police and judicial corruption/apathy but also because the laws, as they are currently framed, lend themselves to easy abuse.

All these amendments placed draconian powers in the hands of the police without adequate safeguards against the irresponsibility of the enforcement machinery. There are any number of cases coming to light where Section 498A has been used mainly as an instrument of blackmail. It lends itself to easy misuse as a tool for wreaking vengeance on entire families, because, under this section, it is available to the police to arrest anyone a married woman names as a tormentor in her complaint, as “cruelty" in marriage has been made a non-bailable offence. Thereafter, bail in such cases has been denied as a basic right.

This law has lent itself to gross abuse, because arresting and putting a person in jail, even before the trial has begun, amounts to pre-judging and punishing the accused without due process. Although a preliminary investigation is required after the registration of the F.I.R, in practice such complaints are registered, whether the charges are proved valid or not, and arrest warrants issued, without determining whether the concerned family is actually abusive, or they have been falsely implicated. Our laws do not recognise the possibility of daughters-in-law maltreating old in-laws or other vulnerable members of their husband's family.

There are any number of cases where the problem is mutual maladjustment of the couple rather than abuse by the entire joint family. However, a host of relatives, including elderly parents, who are not necessarily the cause of maladjustment, have all been arrested and put in jail for varying lengths of time before the trial begins. There have been several cases where judges have refused bail unless the accused family deposits a certain sum of money in the complainant’s name as a precondition to the grant of bail.

There have been of instances where the main point of discord between the couple was that the wife wanted the husband to leave his parent's home or an old widowed mother and set up a nuclear family. Since the man resisted this move, the wife used 498A as a bargaining device, without success though.

Indeed, there have been many cases where the woman uses the strict provisions of 498A in the hope of enhancing her bargaining position vis a vis her husband and in-laws. Her lawyers often encourage her in the misguided belief that her husband would be so intimidated that he will be ready to concede all her demands. However, once a family has been sent to jail even for a day, they are so paranoid that they refuse to consider a reconciliation under any circumstances, pushing instead for divorce, then they are in a fight to the finish. Thus, many a woman ends up with a divorce she didn’t want and with weaker, rather than strengthened, terms of bargaining.

Often, these highly exaggerated or bogus claims made by unscrupulous wives and her family fail to stand scrutiny and many cases do not go far because the charges are so exaggerated that the cases fall through. In many instances, out-of-court settlements are made, by presenting, with mutual consent, a joint petition/ in the High Court u/s 482 Cr. P.C., using 498A as a bargaining point by the woman’s family. But this in itself amounts to using the law as a weapon of intimidation rather than a tool of justice defeating the letter, spirit and purpose of the law depriving the truly deserving cases of her legitimate dues.

Courtesy http://peterzohrab.tripod.com/dowrlaws.html

and some more here.


Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Crime and Morality - some Incoherent Thoughts


The people of Champaran, my native place, may not have electricity in their houses but a good many of them are proud owner of things like VCD players, thanks to the porous Indo-Nepal border through which second-rate Chinese goods are routinely smuggled. The region has always taken pride in its being the entry point of Mahatma Gandhi's political career in India, and off late claims regular mention in national dailies for its innovations in kidnapping industry, which unfortunately is not doing very well because these days the hostages are not loved by their greedy relatives as much as the money that is demanded for them. However, relevant industry experience often opens conducive career avenues, most notably in local politics.

Though I am beginning to enjoy talking about this, I will come back to my main point - that the word Crime has quite a different meaning in Champaran. There exists a wide gap between legal crime and moral crime. Most of what is illegal is not immoral there. For instance, looting passengers in a running train is just being naughty. Your mother just twists your ear and then asks you to sit for the lunch. This example may sound rather extreme to you. But I have recently come to know that one of my own uncles had also done that - train robbery - when he was a naughty teenager. It could very well be a lie, because people take pride in saying such things. After all, our sense of pride is singular, just like our sense of crime.

There is a thin line of difference between business and crime - mixing salt with Urea and selling it in market is, technically speaking, a business. And the man who did this is a man of consequence today. Today he sits with other men of consequence and talks about honesty, hard work, and even spirituality. After all, with age, spirituality is a logical inevitability. When sight starts to blur, people start to see God. Till a man is young and virile, he plays other games. God is only a tired man's toy.

Crime is not sinful in Champaran. It is a philosophy in practice - child labor, quackery, smuggling etc are common affairs there. These things don't hurt our sentiments. What hurts our sentiments? What is not common? All the feminine values, like Love. The word itself sounds awkward in that region. If you translate it in local language, it sounds even more awkward. If it doesn't sound awkward to you, your ears are either used to hypocrisy or corrupted by B-grade movies. Others are not as shameless as you are, they get uneasy when they hear such words; the ladies grin and the gents walk out with their offended masculinity.

Proud are the parents whose son is obedient; no conditions apply. If the son is disobedient and decides to marry the one who he loves, it becomes very hard for his parents to breathe normally. What a shame! In case of daughter, it becomes even harder. Shame! Heart Attack!! Suicide!!! If you go on mixing salt in urea, nobody minds your business. But the community will surely mind your business if you dare to mix caste. Anything can be adulterated but the reverend caste; the reverend caste must stay pure, kept at a safe distance from the malicious influences of other caste. Mixing caste is a treason. And that's unforgivable!

Ultimately wisdom wins; reason prevails over passion. The traditional norm is to marry as per parents' wishes and then have your way later on. With age men are known to be more and more fun loving. And if a woman is smart enough not to get caught, even she can steal some fun from life. That is not a problem, as long as you keep your mouth shut, and remember the basic rules of discretion. Obedience is some sort of social etiquette, and people respect its dividends.


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When it comes to morality, it's simple - a moral society consists of successful men and virtuous women. In Muslim societies, however, the other condition is - people must believe in the words of their Prophet, and follow his imperatives. However, rules are rationalized for successful men, as long as they are successful. For women, the conception of Holy Virgin summarizes it - do give birth to Jesus, but don't get laid. Sexual morality is not a subset, it is the super set of all morality. The root of your morality is located in your genitals, and its other branches stretch into your bank accounts.

With this sense of morality people feel a sort of contempt for call center employees. At the same time, they also feel envy from them. Interestingly, both the sister emotions are engendered by the common parent - rumor. The myth and mystery of the steamy call-center nights provoke wild imaginations in civil minds. And the frustrated civility of mind retaliates - if you can not get what they have, then deny them what you have. Don't regard them with respect. Spit on their face when they are around. In your heart, however, you know that it is not fair. You know that your assumed moral superiority is nothing but a face-saving compromise with your sad state of affairs, caused by lack of looks and/or lack of luck. Had you been lucky, you too would have dug your teeth deep in the meat of life and taken a big juicy bite from it.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Watching The Watchdog


Do read The Crime That We All Committed on Outlook. The author tries to imagine the agony and helplessness of a man who woke up one fateful morning to find his only child dead, murdered in his own safe house. Hard to believe, but what was to follow was even more traumatic. He was to be taken to the point of delirium. In front of his eyes, police poked his daughter's dead body by tip of boot, and media lifted her skirt to let everyone see what all lied in there. Before he could understand anything, his house was rummaged, every towel, every underwear was fished out, and every stain was publicly scrutinized. The poor girl was murdered again, and again, and again.

Before he could sit down and convince himself that his child was actually dead, before he could mourn his misfortune, and before he could say goodbye to her, he was dragged away from her dead body. And before he could collect himself, he came to know that he was accused of having an illicit relationship with his colleague, and he was accused of murdering his own daughter. Finally, he came to know that he was convicted for the crimes that he never could have committed. It all happened at a dizzying speed.

And when he got his senses back, he found himself locked in a dark, quiet, cell. The show was over. Everyone had left him. Everything was lost for him forever.


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It has been observed that institutions tend to become inward-looking and self-serving with the passage of time. The pursuit of worthy goals is gradually, and unobtrusively, replaced by pursuit of power. Man is born blind, and power pushes him down the cliff.

In democracy, the corruption of institutions can be checked by keeping vigil, and by keeping people vigilant. And all this is carried out by another institution - media. Such is the importance of this that it is not wrong to state that the health of a democracy is directly dependent on the health of its media. So it is important to keep media healthy.

But being an institution itself, media too is open to all worms of corruption. And when media gets corrupted, everything falls out of place. The question here is - who watches the watchdog?

In a healthy democracy, the media is supposed to watch itself. Sadly, our media doesn't. Media is supposed to report the truth. Sadly, our media does everything but that - media men investigate the case, perform the autopsy, conduct the trial, pronounce the judgment, and finally execute the convict, live on camera. They distort facts, speculate, sensationalize, and goof-up everything.

They mix truth with fiction in such a way that it's hard to know what is what. The show becomes a reality and the reality becomes a show. Someone's life becomes a reality show. Man consumes news, and news consumes Man. Media hunts down one of us everyday to entertain rest of us. Media hunted Dr Talwar and we consumed him. And even that became a reality show!

Imagine the fate of our democracy - while what is public is carefully kept private, the private is exposed publicly. We don't have news anymore, all we have is gossip-mongering, all we have is voyeurism. Camera takes us into others' bathrooms and bedrooms, shows us their diaries and letters, and peeps into their salary accounts. We the people need entertainment, a hell lot of it. Anything is fine with us as long as it entertains us. And such is the depth of our boredom that anything entertains us. Media managers mint money while we swill countless glasses of spurious entertainment.

But who cares? The entertainment-hungry people? Or the profit-hungry media? At least the media doesn't. The loyalty of media managers is towards TRP alone. The days when media consisted of men with character and values are long gone. Now media is a thriving industry that recruits thousands of third class loafers who are out only to climb ladders, at any cost. Most of them have absolutely no idea what journalism stands for; and they are ready to fall for everything. That's why most of them are seen running after the cars of celebrities like street dogs. That's why they strip their decency on drop of hat, and with equal equanimity they disrobe others of their dignity too, as they recently demonstrated in this case. High on their collective power, they stagger on and trample on everything that comes in their way, with assured impunity.

Media is too important to us, too important to be allowed to run astray. We need them back on track. So it is high time media was given a tight slap hard on their face. It is high time some character and some discipline is brought back to them. It is high time they were reminded of their responsibilities. And if they choose to disregard their responsibilities, they not only forfeit the rights that they enjoy but also face legal consequences. They must be accountable to the people, and they must not breach the boundary of social contract.

Let the media be free; let the media have their say, as long as they respect the social contract, and as long as they mention what is it that they are saying- whether it is news, opinion or mere speculation. They must not mix up things. In any case, Aarushi case must never be repeated in future. Those who hold camera must know well that they too are being watched.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

The Dark Knight


After all, it was a Hollywood movie!

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America is a bright student of std IV, and India is a poor student of std XI. Most of what America talks is childish, but that rings with confidence. India, unsure of what it knows, on the other hand, stammers when opens its mouth, and looks pretty stupid.

I had read in a review on IMDB that this movie explores literary themes. It was this that lured me into watching this movie. I do not attach much expectation with a typical Hollywood movie. And I hardly bother myself with most of them. But being right at the top of all time great movies is no joke. Well, it is a joke, but I didn't know that till yesterday, when I found myself at the wrong end of the joke.

This movie does explore literary themes, but at std IV level. This movie is an adaptation of a batman comic, and a good adaptation indeed, but of a comic strip only, not of a Tagore or a Tolstoy. It was foolish on my part to expect anything more than comic literature. But I did, and that costed me Rs 120/-, 3 weekend hrs and 1 liter of petrol.

The antics of the villain - Joker - were not funny. They were sometimes boring, and sometimes very boring. He plays role of a psychopath, but he fails to inspire fear. The reviews had led me to expect a devil of a villain but despite all his witty one-liners he doesn't look very sharp. With all paint, plaster and slurps, he looks rather disgusting than intimidating.

In fact, the hero looks more intimidating with his fleet of cars and women. He, and his alter-ego - Batman, can do whatever they fancy thanks to the mind-numbing gadgets devised by their Research and Development team. And when someone can do whatever he wants, it doesn't awfully matter who he is up against. It does, from a moral standpoint, but not otherwise. There is nothing heroic in not having limitations. It's easy to be a hero when nothing is at stake and nothing costs much. The point is that there was no genuine contest between good and evil. There was no genuine temptation, no genuine dilemma, and no genuine despair. The whole game was made-up, and poorly made-up.

Actually, apart from disproportionate dependence on science and finance, and lack of art, the main problem with American movies is externalization of Evil. Americans film-makers almost feel a scatological compulsion to import enemies - either Russians, or Koreans, or Chinese, or Iranians, even aliens, and now psychopaths - to make movies. They fail to see the evil in their own society. They fail to see their enemies in themselves - in their ignorance, in their insensitivity, and in their paranoia. They fail to explore situations that generate moral conflicts in a normal Man, in each one of us. And that's why most of their movies are childish, of std IV level, this one being no exception. "The Dark Knight" is hopelessly Hollywoodish - again with a petty theme set on grand stage.

And Bollywood worships Hollywood! It's interesting to see how disgracefully we behave under the influence of inferiority complex!

Rating - 5/10

Friday, July 25, 2008

Aawara Hoon


1. 15 Aug --> A bike trip to Coorg is on the way. If no one gives me company, I'll do an ekla chalo re. That's the meaning of independence, isn't?

2. Konkan --> By the way, what was I doing in Pune for two years? Nothing by the way, except being a passive part of a trip to Ratnagiri! Am I forgetting something? Anyways, how about riding from Mangalore to Goa? Sounds interesting, isn't?


3. Summer of 2009 --> I am going to buy a Royal Enfield ThunderBird TwinSpark next year. Well, it's not only about buying, it's about deserving also. And I think I deserve a T'Bird. Why? Because I'm going to fly all the way to Laddakh next summer.

4. Rajasthan --> Bikaner, Jaisalmer, and Udaipur. Desert Safari. wow! Rohit, I am coming! Post summer 2009 any weekend. And for a change, by car this time. :)

5. Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh --> Next in line is North-East. No plans have been made as of now, but winds swing in the direction of their moods, blowing everything with them. Who knows when the winds will start blowing eastwards?

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Long time no sight seeing, and no sight shooting either. I must have forgotten the password of my flickr account. This birthday, I have gifted myself a Canon Powershot IS S5; it's time to take the camera out of cover. Enough of march past! Time to throw the uniform and put something cheerful on. Time to wander again, head heavy with dreams, feet dancing along the dreamy way.

Monday, July 07, 2008

On Religion


What makes a man a man - eyes, or tears?

Man can see, though he can not see enough. But he can feel. He can feel pain, not only his own but of others as well. And that - compassion - makes him a man. Not efficiency, for efficiency makes him a machine, a robot.

Man has five senses. He could have more but he has five only. Some have fewer than five. There are institutions to take care of their handicap. Similarly some men can not think, or they can not think enough. They are entrusted to mental hospitals, or prisons.

Religion is another asylum, which is made for the spiritually handicapped - those who lack sensitivity, those who need to be told that killing is sin.

What's There in Name?


I am an experiment. Who conducts this experiment? - Nature. Wind blows over sea, and thousands of ripples take place.

I am also like one of these thousand ripples. From the water I was raised, and in the water I shall fall. What am I? Who am I? Am I an entity? Or an event?

A sea is always the same, though it is never the same. What is this - a paradox, or just our ignorance, our misunderstanding of things? Sea always changes, it always happens, but it never becomes. I also happen. I am a human being. Or a human becoming?

What is being - a noun, or a verb, or both? Perhaps a verb has been given a name.

And with name comes the illusion of identity, and ego. I know it, but my vanity refuses to understand. I keep on trying to be significant. I forget that I can not be more significant than I already am.

Is Geeta Heartless?


Life is a riddle to man. And to solve this riddle, Krishna preached Geeta, which is a riddle in itself. It is more than what it says literally. It requires a Guru to be explained. It requires an understanding to be understood. In short, the answer poses another question, which needs to be answered. But doesn't this defeat the whole purpose? Had Arjun been as wise as Krishna, Krishna wouldn't have wasted his words on him. Krishna must have recognized his limitation, and that's why he began to talk at first place. He should have taken efforts to minimize the scope of ambiguity and confusion. Did he do that? That's the question.

Geeta assumes existence of a certain soul. It dismisses the body, and celebrates the soul. But why do we care so much about soul? After all, it's body that we know. We know our mother by her face, and not by her soul? It is the look of her face that gives us solace. Those who don't see their mother' face don't find comfort in the fact that soul can never be killed.

Does the philosophy of Geeta help when we need it most? It does stimulate our mind, but does it soothe our heart? Don't we find it too intellectual to be human? Don't we find it rather heartless?