Thursday, August 27, 2015

Let better sense and optimism prevail!

There’s something about the basics and fundamentals with me. I seem to see things threadbare.
The keyword being “seem” to see.
It started with analyzing an issue, a difficult individual or personality driven corporate battles. This habit spilled over into life itself. It’s almost like I see everything in 1’s and 0’s like Neo sees it in the last scene of Matrix (First part).

That movie was indeed prophetic. Today we are living in the Matrix. Everything around us is as fake as it can get. We are slaves to a system that pushes us into paying up. Taxes or EMIs. One way or the other.

We keep cribbing but struggle to stay within the system and in fact climb the ladder.
We’ve distorted the very meaning or definition of Happiness.

We are running around or driving each other crazy in this fast urbanized/westernized world.
We aim to have a lavish house without having the time to dwell in them.
We aim to have a lavish car without enjoying the drive in itself.
We aim and keep slogging for a mirage called “Happy Day”.  Even if it were to come, it wouldn’t last more than a ‘day’. The very next day, we would be back in the same rut.
We don’t have ‘Time’ for our people. However, we claim to be slogging FOR them.
We are all fooling ourselves beyond limits. Why do we work beyond office hours? Why do we travel crazy for hours in traffic? We are so zonked on weekends that we don’t want to get out of the house. What was the bloody point? Or What IS the bloody point?

We work hard for a promotion. Once promoted and with a meagre increase in salary, we are worried about tax saving. With that comes the most lucrative option of buying a house on EMIs. Rest of our life is ‘invested’ in servicing one EMI after the other.

Mind you – At the end of it, happiness is still elusive.
However, we’ve experienced Happiness. During our younger days.
The wealth we had was TIME and NOT money. That was immaterial. Reality never changes. Somehow, we have this weird belief that to be happier we need more money and then sacrifice the basic ingredient.

I’m all set to reclaim TIME.
Whether happiness still remains elusive or will my theory hold true, is yet to be seen / experienced.

Let better sense and optimism prevail! J

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

'Bang'istan OR 'Ban'istan

The age of producing visionaries and revolutionaries is passé. It’s the age of “reactionaries”.
There is a sudden outburst of reaction and they defy Newton’s laws as well.
For there is never an equal and opposite reaction. Reactions are always far more superficial and exaggerated.

It is sad when decisions are taken or changed on the basis of such reactions.
I’m hinting at the recent endeavor to change our ‘Bang’istan into ‘Ban’istan.


On one hand, our nation is grappling with a ‘men’tality that encourages rape and objectifies women.
On the other hand, we collectively howl at porn being banned.
This is where the real issue is left behind and superficially being dealt with by our very own reactionaries.

I’m not saying that porn is the only cause or even one of the causes of rape. The point is objectification of women. Let’s try and find out one valid reason why pornography exists.
Let alone the decision of some authority “allowing” us to view it or show it.
Here, I refer to pornography for the heck of it and not artistic expressions of erotica.

The issue is NOT that of freedom of expression or freedom to watch what we want in our privacy.
The issue is WHY watch it at someone else’s cost? 
Porn  gaining an “industry” status should be a shame.

Today the supply of porn exists and is growing at astronomical pace on the behest of an alleged demand. So why not kill the demand? What's wrong with it? I don't support the concept of 'ban' in general. But for this issue, why NOT?

This demand has got into scary proportions of voyeurism that makes us think twice in changing rooms, wash rooms, in hotel rooms. In the pretext of catering to the sadist invisible demand, there are possibilities of hidden cameras and each one of us being a potential porn star on one of these sleazy websites.

The issue is not about hypocrisy. It’s not about a nation that gave ‘kama-sutra’ doing something dramatically ironic.
Yet again, I ask for one valid reason WHY "Porn" should even exist. Let alone the freedom around it.

Sunday, August 2, 2015

Happy Friendship!

The basic fabric or the foundation stone of our societal structure is discrimination and hypocrisy.
Before evolution, the primary objective of all living beings was pure survival. Someone at some point in time decided that we must live in a society instead of killing each other in the name of survival.
However, living in a society demanded people to assume roles. Roles meant division of labour. Could have been based on ability, availability of resources etc. The next obvious step was to choose a leader to manage these resources. With each role and the first level of hierarchy came a set of privileges. Thereby planting the first seed of discrimination. Anything after that has been a case of one’s understanding, perception of role, point of view and/or convenience.
Anything one does or says has been based on their understanding.
Rules were made by some for the others to follow. Hypocrisy was thus born.
Communities based on common tasks or responsibilities probably gave birth to tribes. Next step was creating an identity. Maybe this has something to do with the current caste system.

Adapting to change without a fight is not an inherent quality of us homo-sapiens. Survival had taught us to be extremely barbaric. Taming for the sake of society was a daunting task and against the nature at that time.
The side-effects of inculcating a societal structure came with its share of resistance and revolution. The best proven method to tame anyone is by scaring. That of the unknown.
Seeds of religion were thus sown.
Yet again, the concepts of God, Satan, heaven and hell were off-springs of these seeds.

Every citizen who then comes in to the society is given a “house” with a “set of clothes” that he/she is expected to use without changing or questioning.
People have sacrificed lives or taken lives ever since in proving that their house or clothes is better than the others.
What it has manifested itself into today is another case of cross-pollination and interpretation as per convenience. I use the word ‘convenience’, not carelessly but because it has been as per each one’s understanding not taking the pain to realize the true objectives / goal of any action.
What really bakes my noodle is if those objectives are still relevant at all?

Comparison in the societal structure has pushed mankind from ‘hunt’ to ‘feed’ and from ‘need’ to ‘greed’ with unreasonable expected ‘speed’.
Relations and relationships have been strained in the endeavour to display a sense of belonging to the society without understanding the objectives. The root cause being expectations and disappointments thereafter.

The one thing that has remained unaffected or rather shone in all this churning or ‘manthan’ has been the concept of FRIENDSHIP. There are no limitations or boundaries to friendship. There are no rules or guidelines to being a friend. Friendship in itself is not driven by any need.
Friends can assume any role as the need of the hour is and yet remain Friends in its purest form.
Some people still abuse or misuse it is another story. But once they do so, it’s their individual friendship that falls prey but the concept remains unhurt by and large and is still widely accepted and practiced by humanity.

When the concept has stood the test of time through such a rough evolution, how can we dedicate just a “Day” to it?

Long live such a wonderful yet unaffected concept.

Happy Friendship - PERIOD!