Saturday, May 31, 2008

The Human Value of IT


Who needs Democracy? Who wants us to vote?

Well, definitely not the King.

The King would rather have us work, pay our taxes, watch TV, and fall asleep. Our slumber suits him. In fact, he takes elaborate pains to put us to sleep, and to keep us asleep. It is for us to keep ourselves awake. It is for us to ask questions and demand answers. It is for us to empower ourselves.

We Indians believe that freedom is our birthright, just because we got it from birth. We believe that freedom is natural. Perhaps we have forgotten that freedom had not come freely to us. We must understand that it is something that must be valued, and protected from the predators. We can not afford to lose it. We can not give it back to the King.

Our basic claim on freedom begins with a realization - that our votes are important, and a conviction - that we must cast our vote. In every election, we must proclaim that we are awake, loudly and clearly. There is nothing idealistic in it. In fact, nothing could be more practical than voting for freedom.

But what if the problem is external to the voter and inherent in the voting process?

Many of us, despite our convictions, are unable to cast our vote. We work at various corners of India, and even abroad. We are often unable to go to the ballet box. The systematic constraint of physical presence of voter systematically keeps many of us away from elections.

We can not go to the ballet box. Can ballet box be brought to us?

Technology can solve some of our problems. And those problems need not be specific to business or industry only. Technology can solve social problems as well. For instance, take the Flush System - the invention of flush system has contributed more to the emancipation of untouchables than all the efforts of Mahatma Gandhi.

I was just wondering if it is possible for the election commission to conduct the elections online. IT has facilitated e-commerce - net banking, online shopping etc. Though all this has been done in the domain of business, there is no reason why the advantage of technology can not be extended to politics. There is no reason why each one of us, who want to vote, can not vote.

How's that?

Friday, May 30, 2008

On God

There are two type of God - A. one that exists, and B. one that doesn't exist.

From the perspective of faith, men too are of two type -

1. philosophers - those who believe in the-God-that-exists, and those who don't believe in the-God-that-doesn't-exist,
and
2. poets - those who don't believe in the-God-that-exists, and those who believe in the-God-that-doesn't-exist.

Man is combination of these two types - pragmatists and idealists, and his mind is a battlefield of beliefs and disbeliefs.

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

- Do you believe in God?

- Don't you feel that this question is irrelevant to us?

- No.

- OK. Which God are you talking about - the one who has created us, or the one whom we have created?

- Well, the former one.


- Do you mean the latter is different?


- Yes.


- OK. And how do you know the former?


- Common sense - the world can not be created without a creator?

- By the same logic, the creator can not be created without another creator.


- Nice logic. But unlike language, God is not limited by logic. He is beyond logic.


- Then don't you think that He should be kept out of language, and our discussion?

- And out of our meditation as well?

- Depends. But thinking about gravity doesn't help the falling man.

- Do you mean to say that God is indifferent to Man?

- Decide that for yourself. Or take a survey if you please. But we can not meditate upon something we don't know. We can not meditate unless we have an object of meditation. Besides, our knowledge is limited by our senses. How can we know Him if He wants to hide Himself from us?

- It's not as simple as you think. Moreover, do you think man can survive without God?

- Now which God are you talking about -
the one whom the philosopher-king has created?

- Yes.

- I don't know. Depends. Tell me - does faith makes a man a better man?

- I think so.

- I wish it were true.

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

God represents Man's weaknesses.

The-God-that-exists (or God that we know of) is omnipotent - He can do things that Man can only imagine. He is not limited by Man's limitations; or is He? Doesn't He suffer from Man's weaknesses?

Even He is not above His ego. He is justice for all, yet it is well-known that He has soft corner for his devout worshipers, even if they are law-breakers. Flattery, in any language, is music to His divine ears. Like Man, even God is helpless before ego massage.

Even He gets angry once in a while. And when he gets angry, He also wants self-affirmation. He wants blood - to pacify him, something 'dear' needs to be sacrificed. No wonder every religion has rituals having animal sacrifice, where the poor animal is a mere token of something 'dear'.

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

God represents Man's ignorance.

The-God-that-exists explains everything that Man can not. He fills all the gaps in Man's thoughts. And the more the gaps, the more the God.

Man can not understand randomness. He can not understand injustice done to him. He feels nervous amid all the chaos around him. God gives an order to the chaos. He has laws of Karma or the day of judgment, taking care of all the iniquities on earth. He consoles Man, soothes Man, and makes things tolerable.

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

to be continued...

Monday, May 26, 2008

Food for Melancholy Mood

RDB sounds rather mellowed when he croons Gulzar's verses. His tunes remain 'youthful', somewhat pedestrian, but retain the essential elements of music - melody, mood, and timelessness.

If blue is color of your mood, play them on. Melancholy can't sound any better. Here are my favorite 9 Gulzar-RDB blues.

Libaas - Khamosh Sa Afsaana (Lata & Suresh Wadkar)

Jeeva - Roz Roz Aankhon Tale (Asha & Amit Kumar)

Sunny - Jaane Kya Baat hai (Lata)

Sitara - Yeh Saaye Hain (Asha)

Kinara - Naam Gum Jaayega (Lata & Bhupindar)

Ijaazat - Mera Kuchh Saamaan & Khaali Haath Shaam Aaayi Hai (Asha)

Masoom - Tujhse Naaraaz Nahi Zindagi (Anup Ghoshal)

Namak Haraam - Main Shayar Badnaam (Kishore)

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Delhi


Delhi is a modern city - fast and big.

In Delhi, people are big and their life is fast. They don't have time for small things.

Delhiites talk, they talk fast, and they talk big. They are smart, and they have mastered the art of outsmarting others. It is hard not to be awed by their look, as long as they keep their mouths shut. The problem with them is, that they can not.

It doesn't take long to identify a pattern in their thought and their talk. And as soon as it is identified, they lose their luster.

Delhiites talk only in terms of nouns - names and numbers; to be precise - big names and big numbers - this big company and this big package. If you meet someone who unashamedly shows off, you know where he is from. Their mouth perpetually stench with big rotten nouns that they chew like cud. They go on spitting big drops of nouns at your face without realizing how repulsive they and their ridiculous nouns are.

But they are helpless, and hopelessly limited in their range. They can not talk anything else, anything beyond big names and big numbers, even to save their honor. This is what they have done all through their life - show off. They eat branded food in branded joints, wear branded undies (and they somehow show it off), watch branded soaps, work with branded firms, draw branded salaries, and fuck branded sluts. This is how life is to be lived - on a grand scale! Since 99 out of 100 Delhiites lack resources to live a grand life, they just brag to glory. When they open their mouth, they brag. They can really teach you how to put up with unabashed bragging.

If something doesn't have a display value, it's useless. Everything is a showpiece - girlfriend is a showpiece, body is a showpiece, love is a showpiece, education is a showpiece, the whole life is a showpiece. Things are good if they are branded, and better if exotic. No wonder Salsa is 'in'. Even Jesus Christ is 'in'.

But don't ever call a Delhiite wannabe. It is his exquisite aesthetic sense and not his petty bourgeois aspiration that draws him to the 'in' things. He claims to have a taste too. And why not? When he has money, he must be having taste as well. Who dare argue with Money?

Ask a typical Delhiite to speak for 2 minutes on anything that he runs after - whether it is Salsa, or Jesus Christ, and observe him. Most likely he will disgrace himself. Any sentence that starts with how or why exposes the inherent shallowness in them and makes them run for a cover. Sometimes even a what or a who is enough to trip them.

I often wonder what makes a Delhiite swagger? I absolutely fail to understand their characteristic arrogance, which looks quite awkward when paired with their characteristic mediocrity in each and every sphere of life (except, of course, dropping names and showing off branded undies). Tell me how many people Delhi has produced in last 100 years of its history who were worth the undies they wore? And it has guts to put itself in the league of Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, and Mumbai!

Name-dropping is easy, and this is something that marks a jerk in a group. Every jerk drops names. But going further takes character, and only exceptional people have guts to go further. Delhi systematically discourages anything of that sort.

Delhi teaches you just two things - how to earn money, and how to burn it. Everything else is irrelevant. Deep down in his heart, every Delhiite is convinced that it's alright to be a jerk as long as he is able to sponsor his weekend shopping.

He enrolls in branded courses in branded institutes and prepare himself for a branded life. Even his teachers keep things simple now, and they don't worry much about things like values of life. They leave these things in the custody of the invisible hand and busy themselves in issuing notices to parents that their daughters can not wear skirts below their knees.

But the size of skirt is not an issue, neither for girls nor for their parents. They might as well send their girls without skirts for all they care, as long as the school is branded.

A Delhiite takes things easy, unless he is in traffic. He is cool, he is a jerk, and he goes on to pretend that it is cool to be a jerk. It's cool to be oblivious of what's happening around, and it's cool to misspell words. Also, he expects you to understand this. If you refuse to take part in this game, you are uncool.

Delhi is basically a market, and only two words are important there - shopping and money. In Delhi, every road ends at shoppers' stop. When a Delhiite doesn't shop, he prepares for shopping. He prepares in school, in college, in his company, in his solitude, and even in his dreams. Every occasion is seen from a shopping point of view - puja shopping, wedding shopping, honeymoon shopping, even hospital shopping. It's shopping that makes an occasion an occasion. His mind is an endless list of shopping items, and his home is a gallery. His consumeristic needs urge him to see any junk that is broadcasted, listen to any junk that is aired, and buy any junk that is sold. His shopping logic mocks at taste and discrimination. He thinks only in terms of points he earns in shoppers' stop.

And while most of his needs are imaginary, the costs he pays to fulfill these imaginary needs are real. Is this not insanity - paying real cost to fulfill imaginary needs? Is it sane to waste entire life sponsoring insanity?

Delhi's climate, in every sense of the word, is notoriously hostile. If you want to save yourself, if you want to live a meaningful life, leave Delhi at once. Otherwise nothing will ever catch your imagination except those silly ads that you see in TV.

What else do you expect to get in market anyway - Truth, Beauty, or God? Well, even they are sold in market - but all synthetic - synthetic truth, synthetic beauty, and synthetic God - and all dead! Can you see how dangerous this place is? This place is an arid desert, where man is running amok with thirst and all he gets is false promise; all he gets is a shadow, a mirage. Man dies, but not his cravings. What else is Hell?

What are you waiting for? Leave this God forsaken place or you will end up doing what thousand others do - collecting branded undies* and showing them off to all and sundry.

'Delhi' is a corruption of thought, a mental disease, and Delhiites are walking insane infected with this disease. 'Delhi' is a virus that eats the very spirit of man and makes him a raving show-off. In 'The Matrix', they pull out this malicious device from Neo's body by a hi-fi machine. Do we have any machine like that?

But cure comes later. Despite numerous symptoms, the sick keeps on denying the diagnosis. He is blind to facts. He is blind to truth. He can not see that there is something fundamentally wrong with the very idea of Delhi. It's maddening - a doctor kills his daughter**, a chartered accountant kills his wife (thankfully he didn't put her in tandoor), someone rapes kids, eats them and bury their bones, someone shoots a woman in a bar because she refuses to serve liquor after closing hour, someone rapes a medical student in broad daylight, someone rapes an embassy official barely 5 kms away from the Parliament, some teenager shoots his own classmate... oh I feel tired now. The newspapers burn with such headlines but nothing seems to scandalize, sensationalize, sensitize or even surprise us anymore. Is this state of mind normal?

Delhi might offer its explanations but who's interested in explanations! The fact remains that these offenders are not professional criminals. They are not outsiders. They are like us, they live in our colonies, and they hold our kids in their arms. Many of them are educated and sophisticated people, who work with MNCs, watch 'HBO' and read 'Time' in leisure. And this fact suggests that something is terribly wrong with the value system of Delhi, if they have any. Delhi doesn't need explanations, it needs an introspection. It needs a cure.

Let's have a look at one of the most BIMARU states - Bihar, vis-a-vis Delhi.

What's ailing Delhi is not what's ailing Bihar. The malady of Bihar is Indian, but the malady of Delhi is American. The malady of Bihar is caused by politics of caste and scarcity, but the malady of Delhi is, apart from patriarchy, driven by excess and relentless pursuit of excess. It's a bit comic but I can't even laugh at it.

There is a hope for Bihar. Bihar needs some political will to put the economic machinery at place. And sooner or later, with effective governance, it'll come out of its misery. But what hope we can have for Delhi? How much education and how much wealth it would take to restore sanity in Delhi?

It is outrageous that the whole nation is made to bleed in order to make Delhi look photogenic. But Delhi's ugliness can not be hidden by any make-up. Every now and then the make-up melts, and something hideous shows up, embarrassing the whole nation. In fact, with all that cosmetics smudged over its dirty face, Delhi looks positively grotesque. The bitter truth is that no matter how much it develops, Delhi will always remain undeveloped. Because it is a civilization that stands out only for lack of civilization.

No. Cosmetics is no substitute for health and hygiene. Delhi should go wash its face before doing the make-up. Delhi must realize that it doesn't suffer from deficiency, it suffers from excess. And the irony of excess is a tastelessness followed by an acidity. It's high time Delhi decided the upper limit of its greed and profligacy, which is the reason for all its malady and sufferings. It's time Delhi learned to say a resounding 'No' to salesmen like Sachin and SRK. Delhi should learn to stop sometimes, sit out in the open for a while and look at the moon in the sky. If they do it, they will be cured.

The only problem with Delhi is Delhiite himself. And the problem with Delhi is, alas, that Delhiite doesn't understand this. He doesn't even listen, he just talks smart and shows off his branded undies. After some time, when he doesn't feel entertained anymore, he turns on some third class music at some unforgivable volume and zooms off in his swanky car. You just wish he reaches home safe. After all, it's Delhi.

* undies:- metaphor for anything private, which is irrelevant in public domain - it could mean anything from undies (literally) to electronic gadgets.

** Shame media, shame. Shame on you.

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Role of IT in India

Revenue - Cost = Profit

Most of the decisions that are made have economic reasons, as long as political interests don't come into conflict.

Profit is the ends of whatever happens in industry, and the means are, among other things, 1. Technology and 2. Management. Every endeavor is directed to maximize the revenue and minimize the cost.

In this profit-centric ecosystem, things like ecological balance may go to hell.

Modern Industry is characterized by Speed and Scale. Every industry is like every other industry - they all want to grow, they want to grow fast, and they want to grow infinitely.

Most of the problems, from personal to social to ecological, are directly and indirectly caused by this speed-scale mania. Growth is not as innocent a word as we take it to be.

Growth means growth of production, which necessarily means growth of consumption, and which necessarily means growth of market (enter the agents of business - WTO, World Bank, IMF etc with non-stop open-yourself mantra, and the 24 * 7 sales representative - Media - since what is produced has to be consumed, demand is identified and even invented to match the growing supply. enter Aishwarya Rai.)

Also, the economy of scale ensures an inversely proportional relationship between scale and cost, so setting any upper limit on production is illogical in this premise. Organizations strive to expand their business, become multinational, outsource their work and acquire firms in order to reduce the cost of production. Sometimes the pursuit of cost reduction goes slightly overboard - when the need to control the means of production leads to war.

If you ignore war, all this business usually looks pretty harmless. But it is anything but harmless. For every commodity that is made in factory, existence of a market is essential. To consume the ever growing supply of junk food and junk entertainment, our homes have become market. For weapons and bombs to be consumed, places like Afganistan where nothing else can be sold have been made market. If they can not dump their goods, they dump their bombs!

Urban India is an expanding market - dumping ground - for expanding supply of junk food and junk entertainment. Rural India, since it doesn't have purchasing power to save itself, gets shiploads of imported nuclear waste piled on it year after year. Did you know that our governments allow this - dumping nuclear waste on our land? I will not be surprised if you didn't - gone are the days when newspapers used to wake us up. Now media sings lullabies. So switch on your TV, watch Sachin playing between breaks, in which he does the real thing - sell Coca Cola.

Technology speeds up things. It all began with the advent of assembly line and now, thanks to the development in Information Technology, things happen faster than ever. Investment bankers earn millions of dollars for their organizations with click of buttons. Manufacturers launch new models of car or mobile phone in months instead of years. No wonder we get to see new products everyday.

However, the text-book of economics talk about free market and* ...

*this is an incomplete post.

Friday, May 02, 2008

Nausea

When I was preparing myself for higher studies in Economics, I was often made to face this sphinx-like question - Capitalism or Communism? And I had no answer ready.

Modernity is said to be based on Reason. But behind the facade of Reason, there has been a lust for Power, and power is procured by twin-procurers - 1. Technology and 2. Economy of Scale. Under the auspices of Growth (a hope, or a madness, or a mad hope?), there has been the same lust for Power, which sailed and soared with East India Company, soon unmasked its ugly face with advent of Hitler and then went berserk in Hiroshima. But even that was not the end. Despite collective disillusionment and shame, the juggernaut of modernity still rolls on, and little can be done to check its movement.

Why should this bother me now? This bothers me simply because it has a direct bearing on our life and our lifestyle. We do have alternatives but the cost of choosing is so high (scale, you see!) that you and I are practically left with no other choices. The door of this cage is open but we still can not run away. We have to stay inside and struggle for things we hardly care about.

There are always some incidental beneficiaries of a change, and they welcome the change even though the change was not made keeping them in mind.

Modernity needed people, men and women, for its factories and its shops, to produce and to consume, on a big, and growing, scale. The power-shift was to take place, and for its own reasons it was in no mood to put up with any nonsense of past that threatened to retard its progress. The creaking old system was ready to collapse and make way for the new system. Here enters Reason, which came handy to administer a coup de grace. Science came to reason away the dogmas of Church. And the liberals ideas of Democracy saw off monarchy to its grave. Bourgeoisie celebrated the mass release of the masses from the prejudices of tradition, unfortunately, though, for ends not entirely free from its evil. Unfortunately, traditional evil was only to be replaced by modern evil. However, people could not see the face of evil. They could not see the end of the road that lied ahead. They didn't have time to check whether there was any U turn ahead, and they forgot to check whether the brakes were working. They just boarded the wagon with a loud cheer.

Industrialization promised abundance. Everyone was to have everything. But with growth grew disparity among men. Poverty is by no means a modern phenomenon but now, when wealthy show-off their wealth, the poor see their poverty more clearly and feel it more bitterly.

Poverty doesn't mean lack of wealth. It does not mean not having what rich have - mobiles, cars and other waste of modern lifestyle. It means not having access to clean air and water, to fruits that trees bear, and to the other blessings of earth, which she showers on all. It means being deprived of the most fundamental human rights.

Disparity engenders discontent, and thus fosters hatred, crime and terrorism among marginalized. Rich often put the blame on poor but they forget that they are not only victims but also party to it. Legally or otherwise, they loot from outside and hoard in their houses. And the more the loot, the more the fear of being looted - result: anxiety, distrust, and high walls of isolation.

Finally, it has brought us face to face with the irony of excess - food is in plenty but it doesn't taste good anymore. It fills, but fails to fulfill. An undefined hunger still remains. And all we feel is nausea - from overdose inside, and from sight of beggars outside.

It is a zero sum game. Beggars are fallout of a system that produces millionaires. For mansions and palaces to exist, slums have to be there. Lullabies like trickle-down have lost their spell.

Modernity is a modern reminder of a Tragedy. The protagonist - Reason - fights away the mighty villains and returns proudly as hero, only to find out that he has been used by other villains to achieve their small purposes, on a big scale. He finds himself at receiving end of a practical joke. Fallen out of his ideals, he feels betrayed. He feels like a traitor. And he can do nothing but helplessly watch the wagon rattling on towards a dead end.

Coming back to the question of Capitalism and Communism, which doesn't seem sphinx-like to me anymore, it is clear that they are offspring of the same parent - Modernity. The only difference lies in the manner in which Capital (read Power) is said to be shared. The lust for capital remains the same, and so is the fetish for growth. Both are materialistic (thanks Sanket) to core and devoid of any element of spirituality. None can afford what I am after.