Archive for the ‘Society’ Category
Could do without
In the three weeks that saw this blog, the writer of this blog and the world’s largest democracy grow an year old there were a few things that we could have done without. To name a few:
1. The bombs in the city were too many and enough to spark a debate, yet again, on how safe we are. A few more days of debates and now we are going back to our comfort zones until the bombs show up again, which will bring us back to square one.
2. The internet doesn’t work at nights. Why? Well, after three successful attempts of stealing the local internet server and numerous unsuccessful ones, the local service engineer had had enough of the robbers. Refusing to take any more chances he decided to do what I thought was strange (if not absurd) but at least safe — he took the internet server offline and shifted it to a safe house every night. That I access internet at night doesn’t matter, of course.
3. My yahoo email spam has increased by more than 10 times. Right, that would be 1000%. I believe this was a “revenge” taken by a website. All I did was unsubscribed their newsletter earlier forced upon me. Now they have forced upon me 10 spam emails everyday. And these are those emails that bypass the spam filter and land in my inbox. Right from “Malasian Lottery” (Not Malaysian) to Microsoft announcing Cash rewards. Whatever it is, it surely exposes Yahoo’s Spamguard’s failure. Yahoo’s yet another failure while trying to get the spammer off its back. One failed attempt worth reading here.
Some more things that I remember(ed) but fail to make the cut now. Too hectic at work these days. I should write more.
Californication
Taking an (enforced) break from the world wide web and blogging (and email, youtube…). As the blogposts (to be read) pile up my inbox there was one email (blog posting alert that is) that caught my attention. Subject: Gas Consumption: California vs. China, India. This post from Sepiamutiny.com throws an interesting and probably alarming statistic — That California consumes more Gasoline per year than China or India.
But, at least with transportation fuel, you’d be wrong. California alone uses more gasoline than any country in the world (except the US as a whole, of course). That means California’s 20 billion gallon gasoline and diesel habit is greater than China’s! (Or Russia’s. Or India’s. Or Brazil’s. Or Germany’s.)
This excerpt is from another blog that the sepiamutiny post links to. Read the whole thing here.
Read it.
Divider and Rule
Barely 250 meters ahead was the U-turn that would enable the rider to be where he wanted to be. 250 meters the side I was on and 250 meters on the other side — A ride of half a kilometer would all that would take him to respect the law.
But yet he kept waiting on the side of the road, the same side as I was. The problem with this section (on this side) is that vehicles come at a higher (than usual) speed and for the pedestrian, it is quite a challenge to cross the road. This is not so, once you are half way through because the other side has an intersection down the road, which prevents the vehicles on that side to speed up.
So while I waited, and I waited approximately 4 minutes to cross the road, this seemingly well educated man on his bike waited too. Engine turned on and quite ready to put his bike on the divider in the middle and then cross over, at the first opportunity.
Needless to say, a 500 meter ride instead would have taken much less time and given a lighter conscience.
As I arrive in the middle and stand on the little space on the divider, so does this man, on his bike. We wait for the traffic on the other side to ease up.
I look at him and ask: “Why are you doing this?”
The guy is expressionless.
He looks down, then looks behind him and gets his bike on the same side he was on. With that little guilt that I saw in his eyes, he rides ahead, on the way, quite literally if I may say, to follow the law.
I stay where I am. I look straight and there is another guy on the other side. I notice he is trying to say something.
With sign language, he asks me if its okay to ride his bike over the divider.
(Dis)honor
How does the state honor the passing away of country’s greatest soldier?
Sounds alright. Just that the President of the Indian Republic, The Vice-President, The Prime Minister, The Defence Minister and The Three chiefs of the Armed forces won’t be able to make it.
Carry it on, somebody send someone to represent the absentees, won’t you? Nobody’s noticing.
Oh and in the rare case, if there is hue and cry, we can always sign the condolence book and keep it at India gate. Of course, the Defence Minister and the three chiefs will sign it first!
In my opinion, this was the only profound way to dishonor the passing away of India’s greatest soldier.
Is it worth it afterall, being a soldier in this country, I wonder.
A Moment in Time
I see this guy, has this Johnny Depp kind of a beard and a physique that could make the strictest of gym goers wonder what could be wrong with their workout regimen. Only later do I realize, because of his continued conversations on the phone, that he is a Muslim. He is called Aslam.
So we rode down to the river where the Victorian ghosts pray
For the curses to be broken
We go underneath the arches where the witches are and they say
There are ghost towns in the ocean
The ocean…
He is not a strict Muslim, that much I can see. For he does not do his prayers on the floor but on the train seat itself, with a pillow on his lap. And it is at that moment that the words are spoken to me, the sound in my head —
Gunners in the houses and gunners in my head
And all the cemeteries in London
I see god come in my garden but I don’t know what he said
For my heart it wasn’t open
Not open…
Suddenly it’s all very clear. That very moment, those few seconds, I cease to see him as Aslam. Instead, I start seeing him as a misunderstood Muslim. And perhaps more importantly, a Muslim that has misunderstood it all. I have not come across many defining moments in my life but I sure know how it is when one happens.
A few days back I read it somewhere and I think it was Bono who said — “Generally, religion gets in the way of God.” I know exactly what Bono meant when he said that. Certainly, this is not about U2 or Coldplay’s latest or Aslam. It’s about identities lost, perceptions — both right and wrong, failures to connect with each other at the human level and a broken hotline with God, to top it all.
Suddenly, it’s all very clear to me.
Not a drop to drink
Saturday morning movie shows, perfect for guys like me. Not many people have the tendency to go all the way, alone, to the most secluded multiplex in the city at 10 am on a Saturday morning to watch a movie. Chronicles of Narnia — Prince Caspian, turned out a decent movie. Nothing great about it though. The usual stuff fantasy movies are made of — talking animals and walking trees.
A little before the show starts, thirst strikes and I am compelled to have a drink of water before I enter the cinema. Except that no one is willing to “give” me water. They’d only sell it. Right from the gatekeeper to the boys behind the two counters, no one thinks that it is possible to have a glass of water. Where would you have a glass of water if you were thirsty, I ask. Blank stares. Here I was, going around asking the support staff for a glass of water. And there they were, adamant that I buy a bottle of Aquafina.
Why should I spend money buying an already overpriced 1 Litre Aquafina bottle when I can do with only a glass of water?
So well, here’s another model of India’s economic development. A glittering example of how every little thing carries a price on itself. Probably a century ago, in the west, things like these must have happened and the society there turned to what we call today “materialistic”. How would ours be any different?
The Lesser Sinner
“The right way is”, he continued, “to figure out the lesser culprit of all — and vote”.
Teaching a language gives the teacher a whole big playground of subjects to play with. “This is a pen”, “That is a clock” or moving on to a little more complex syntax, “We should all vote”. Complex still — “Who will you vote for?”. That is how this small lecture on politics started, as our Kannada teacher made sure that he put his point through, the responsible citizens that we are, we all should vote.
Not for the first time though. The three sessions he has taken, in a classroom used for teaching Bsc Nursing students that transforms itself into a Kannada school on Sundays, politics is one topic that our teacher seems to enjoy as much as, if not more, teaching Kannada.
The short, stocky, balding man who prides himself for being an ambassador of pure Kannada could very well take pride in the thorough understanding he possesses of state politics. Intellectualism comes in all forms, and sometimes in the least obvious ways.
So while the little man stresses on finding the lesser sinner of all and voting for him, he also mentions one important fact that could well turn out to be the sentiment of the common man — A coalition government just won’t do.
During the coffee break as I stare, silently amused by reading the words “Female Toilet” and wondering if there is a “Male Toilet” I could ‘meet up’ somewhere nearby, our teacher comes up to me and asks if I have my name in the voting list. And then we carry it on to why S.M.Krishna lost and why Kummaraswamy should not come back again.
A few perfectly valid reasons later I am left wondering where did our country go wrong in the last 60 years. For the things that make the common man so “common” deserve much more than the Krishnas, Kumaraswamys and even the Advanis that our political machinery has regularly churned out.