Archive for the ‘General/Society’ Category
Helplessness of the Third Kind
I wrote this piece some 2 years back. Don’t remember the mood I was in.
Helplessness is described by Oxford dictionary as, a condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness, arising from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed. Let us concentrate on the two words powerlessness and failure. Was the failure because of the powerlessness or did powerlessness set in due to failure?
The thing that make us sad, if keeps on repeating, turn us immune. Living under constant uncertainty and doubt tends to make us powerless. It leads us to question everything in life. The confidence goes for a toss. Helplessness arises out of the persistent fear of failure in avenues which are out of our hands. When we can’t decide outcome of things that are not under our control, we are left with nothing but punching the walls.
I always believed and followed the funda of pre-empting such situations. I used to divert myself much before. Coz once I get sucked into it, I will feel powerless and nothing I do will make it better. I have always taken pride in my pre-judging a situation and ability to take preventive measures.
However you can bask in self-glory only so much. I used to chastise my friends for not pre-empting and for letting themselves sucked into. I never understood why they did what they did. I recently understood and how! They let themselves knowingly into a no-win situation backed up by their confidence and sheer hope. Confidence that no matter what, they will find a way and Hope that everything will turn out to be fine.
To an extent hope is good, but beyond a certain limit, it is nothing but foolishness and will destroy you eventually. Better to take things head on, find a solution or move away. Just because you committed yourself into something does not mean you have to stick by it, even if it’s killing you. Being practical is not everyone’s cup of tea but sometimes it’s exactly what is required.
The Others
As we grow up, we imbibe what we see around. Our beliefs, our personality are a sum total of what we gather over the formative years from people we meet. A part of it also comes from our own cognitive makeup, where we accept, reject, and modify what is thrown to us. This is what makes an individual.
In various chunks of our life, we meet certain people; stay at a particular place before moving on to new place and new people. School/College/Changing Jobs. All these make up the said chunks in our life. We try and adjust to our surroundings as we see them; we try and adjust to people as we meet them. This is what we call acclimatization.
Sometime what happens is we try and adjust too much, as our fears get better of us. Fear of not being accepted, fear of being out casted, fear of being ridiculed. These fears start shaping our personality from then on. Sometimes it’s not even fear, it’s just that we are short on confidence, so we try and blend in and follow without asking.
What we don’t realize is it’s affecting our individuality. It might make our stay in the current chunk feel better, but it jeopardizes the upcoming chunks in our life. Due to our fears we make certain compromises and pay for these compromises all our life.
For example when we are in college, we do a lot of things due to peer pressure. Drink, Smoke, Career choices are few of such things. What we don’t realize is the peer group that we are succumbing too, is just for the current chunk of our life, it won’t stay with us forever, but the choices we make due to it, will haunt us for life.
It’s important to use our cognitive machinery a lot more while imbibing from our surroundings. Always think of long term impact of our choices. Never ever do things to please others. Let them take a hike.
IRCTC: Myth vs Reality
http://www.irctc.co.in needs no introduction. Each one of us have spent good amount of time just gazing at computer screen for something to happen. But to no avail. All we saw were “Connection Time Outs” and excruciating delays. I have seen people venting their anger on irctc website for failing to get tickets booked using choicest of expletives.
It seems all that is wrong with Indian Railways is just irctc website. It is just the website that hampers us from getting the tickets. And if it is fixed, we would all get tickets. But is it really the case?
Friends, website is just a mirage. All it helps is giving us common people a face to lambast, to vent our anger. The real problem is, we don’t have enough trains, we don’t have enough seats. Irctc is just a portal to book tickets, the tickets that are non-existent.
If a good chunk of a population of 120cr logs in on a website, no earthly power can prevent the crashes. Still with all those login failures and time outs, we see tickets are wiped off within 5-10 mins (more so with tatkal tickets). Why/How?
Try and understand that someone is getting the tickets ultimately. Someone who wants to travel just like us. Its not that the tickets are going waste. The problem is the pie. When pie is very small, the pieces of it would be small too. Here is where touts come in. People blame the ticket agents. You know they stand in ticket line since wee hours or sometime all through the night, to get the tickets booked for their clients. Why to blame them? They just earn a living out of a traversity.
Blame lies on the successive Governments. What have they done to increase the number of trains, increase the number of seats. Not only has our population increased over the decades, the travelling junta have increased manifold. In effect per capita seats (seats/travelling person), have gone down to abysmal stats.
Not much is being done in this regard. When railway gives impression that they are fixing irctc website, they are eliminating touts/agents, it is just a cosmetic exercise to keep people calm, to assure them that something is being done. It’s just a lollypop. The real problem is demand/supply. Unless we spread out the train lines, increase number of trains, this will continue.
India has already borne the brunt of people fighting for their own share of minuscule pies over the years. If something is not done soon enough, add train journey to the list of next social wars in the country.
Take Moral Responsibility and Resign
Wikipedia explains Moral Responsibility as, the status of morally deserving praise, blame, reward, or punishment for an act or omission, in accordance with one’s moral obligations.
He/she should take moral responsibility and resign. Of late I have been reading this statement a lot. This is very common in politics where probity is something which politicians have to abide by due to the public nature of their job. It is much less in private organizations.
This responsibility lies in one’s own moral obligations which differ from person to person. What might be moral obligation for Gandhi, might not be for Godse. I have been reading media reports on how/why head of a particular sports body is asked to resign taking so called moral responsibility. And the concerned person is not ready to.
There is a basic flaw which I find in the moral responsibility argument. When we know a person has done something wrong, it clearly makes him immoral. So in effect we are asking an immoral person to take moral responsibility. Which he clearly will not, as it means relinquishing the power.
On the other hand if a person has done nothing wrong, is honest and moral, the allegations will hurt him/her and in turn he/she will resign. Thus what “moral responsibility and resigning” conundrum does is, it makes moral people relinquish power while immoral people continue enjoying it.
What I feel is society and its pole bearers should get together and throw away the immoral people rather than asking for their resignation. In the particular case of this sports body, the moral people of the organization should get rid of the immoral. But the sad truth is, we are part of a society that celebrates immorality since it beds with power and money. And who would not want it?
Look around, which side would you rather be on? Honestly I would side with power, be it tainted. This is the chilling reality.
The power of NO
During my early childhood, in the absence of mobile phones, there were very few means to communicate real-time. I remember we waited, all dressed up for my father to come from office and take us market/movie or whatever that was promised. It often happened so; he came back late caught up in some work with no communication.
Now my father is what you can call a Community Character. He will go the extra mile to help people who come to him with problems. He would take charge of marriage arrangements to help out families that he knows of. When we were waiting for him he might get busy helping out some old aunt, uncle or someone who asked his help.
We used to get angry with him then, but today we can understand he was just helping his fellow men. People used to ask him for money, for medicines, child’s school fees and what not. He used to help out and mostly never got his money back.
It’s just that he didn’t know how to say NO. We can look at it both ways. Good or Bad. As I grew up and started discussing things more openly with my father, I realized that over the years he too came to understand the need to say NO. More so, when the people whom he helped, never helped back.
Life has changed a lot in last 10-15 years and time has become a scarcity now. Living in metros, fast paced life and hectic work in private firms has left very less time for an individual. It’s ever more necessary to prioritize and filter out things. People would love to let you do their work. Take for example office, do help out others but always complete your own work first. If you have to stay late helping others, it’s your family with whom you are spending less time.
When you say No, do it in a polite manner. Explain the other person that you would like to help out once you complete your own work, time permitting. It would help you in the long term. No point if your own work/family suffers. It’s very frustrating to say the least.
2012: The year that wasn’t
Topmost could have been headlines of year 2012.
1. India demolishes Eng 3-0 in the home Test Match Series. Tendulkar hit his first triple ton. Gambhir is vindicated of “see you at home” remark. BCCI decides to scrap away Tests from ICC Future Tours Program. BCCI chief Srinivasan said and I quote “All Tests played in Chennai will be Home Tests and those played elsewhere in the country will be Away Tests”.
2. World not able to witness 21st Dec 2012. Just as predicted by the great “Ronald Emmerich” in his movie 2012, owing to Earth Crust Displacement and massive Earthquakes, 90% of human civilization is wiped off. This news is telecasted from US Space Station. John Cusack is among the survivors.
3. London Olympics 2012, turned out to be a disaster, overshadowing Delhi Common Wealth Games. Kalmadi was grinning from ear to ear with, “I told ya sa” expression. Anacondas and Godzilla’s were cited around athletes’ village. Organizers are blaming it on different perceptions of security standards across the world.
4. US Presidential elections were marred by an act of shooting when a heated argument between Obama and Romney got out of hand. Both took out their M16’s and started shooting at each other and the audience. The audience were already dead of boredom so no harm done.
5. 2012 was landmark year in India as far as women safety was concerned. Women Safety Bill 2012 was passed in the parliament, which led to Women only Police stations and death penalty for rapists. Country saw ZERO rape cases and only handful of eve-teasing incidents this year.
6. AK series phone have made Nokia the market leader in Smart Phones. Foldable screens and Phones which could shoot better than AK47 have done the trick. “We don’t need to buy a gun for Mass Shootings, We buy Nokia instead”, said a consumer. Apple will be filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy during March next year. Samsung is in talk with Yahoo for a possible sellout.
7. United Nations Security Council intervens in the Julian Assange’s case. US/UK could face UN sanctions owing to gross human right violations. Wikileaks brings to light more facts that no one was aware of. “Sun rises in the East”, “Earth is round” and “Blueberry cheese cake is awesome”.
Among other news.
Chuck Norris was not able to kill two birds with one stone. Rajnikant was cited asleep. Superman wore underwear under his pants. Batman finally played cricket. Vivek Oberoi became superstar. Chacha Choudhary got beaten by new Ipad in chess. Manmohan Singh saw movie of his choice.
Change of Weather and Illness
I was waiting for it to happen since I moved to this new city. It just wasn’t happening. It happened eventually and I am coughing like a dog now.
A sudden change in weather has always made me sick especially when it gets chilly. Extended cough/cold bout which never leave without antibiotics. My first encounter happened when I left home for college. Every time I came home for winter holidays, I fell ill. Since I started working, I have visited my native place rarely for the very same reason.
It’s like a known fact that change in climate affects people differently. Is it just the temperature that affects us or is there something more? Let’s try and find out.
As it turns out, it’s not just the weather but also the related infections and viruses (which blossom under certain climatic conditions only) that affect out body and immune system. When I was in school, the seasonal changes never gave me sickness. The reason being seasonal changes happen quite slowly and body gets time to adapt.
An interesting point I read, we tend to fell ill when tropical storm hits (atmospheric pressure decreases leading to migraines) but not much when (say) take a cold shower. Why? Coz temperature is not the prime factor affecting our health. It’s the Pandora ’s Box that comes along.
Weather changes or Wind blows or It rains, Each bring in something new. As I said certain infections and viruses thrive in certain temperatures. With wind some pollen might blow in aggravating respiratory problems. Atmospheric pressure change that ensues also affects our body as stated earlier.
As per cold weather, they say that during winters we tend to stay indoors, get less sunlight and thus germs are more likely to spread. When it is warm, we tend to go out more in open and breathe fresh air.
It’s nice to know now why exactly I have suffered all these years. Damn you weather.
Back Office in the West
Somewhere during the early ‘90s, everyone realized the immense potential of outsourcing industry. With telecom/data rates on the decline, we saw call centre, KPO, BPO, captive units grow rapidly, changing the lives of a whole generation and realizing the dreams of an entire country.
With jobs, money, prosperity; a slow cultural impregnation has also taken place. We never realized when 31st Dec became the be all and end all of cyclical culmination of celebration. We never realized when Diwali holidays became a rarity and Christmas holidays became a norm. Ladoo/Barfi gave way for Cakes; Jalebis became Donuts; Lassi became too heavy to handle and Coffee light.
All this happened in India coz the jobs coming in were from countries like US, UK etc. I wonder what would have happened if the jobs would have originated from India and Indian culture would have influenced countries around the world.
The light footprint of the world would have been dazzling, the Diwali Night. The next day of Holi, people around the world would have gone schools/colleges/office having tinges of pink/green color on their faces.
A certain person in NY would have woken to Aloo Paratha with butter for breakfast. Haldiram’s would be in place of MacD/Pizza Huts all around the globe. John would have taken his family for a Kachori/Jalebi outing and VadaPao would have been blamed for Indianisation of the west.
In a Hollywood movie Tom Cruise would have a father settled in riches of Mumbai. He would have taken the son to US to get him marry a white girl. A son hell bent on marrying some Priya from Chandigarh. How the Hollywood would have sung, “Come, it’s time to go back”. No Pankaj Udaas, but a certain Snoop Dog would have sung, “A letter from my country” and the American Diaspora would have wept the Nehru Centre.
Mr. Abe would be Shree Abe, or let’s go a step ahead, would have changed his name to Abhimanyu, just to fit in. Roger would have walked into a back office in the heart of London in Kurta Pajama and HR would have coached in how to wear a Pajama with perfect crease. There would have been Chai/Lassi/Thandai machines in the breakouts with a few Charpai thrown in to relax.
The VadaPao/Chola Bhatura joints in NY/London would be decorated with diya’s on Diwali’s eve and people would be discussing, Ram and Sita and the history. People in Italy would protest forceful conversion to Hinduism funded by RSS and would deliberate enacting anti-conversion laws.
Restaurants would be designed so as people would be seated on the floor and waiters serving them food. World economy would be centered in Mumbai with New Delhi bombing countries in South America for their religious extremism and their getting close to develop Nuclear weapon.
I am already ROFL. The potential to explore on this topic is immense but I would excuse myself now lest I think some more and go berserk.
The immortality of Maggi
The immortality of Maggi comes to fore time and again. Just when we forget all about the existence, it rises from the ashes to become part of life once again.
Maggi has been a phenomenon which has touched everyone alike. It transcends through age and gender. Ask a child, a college student, a working bachelor. A lot of imitators have sprung up over the time but none been able to come even near.
What is it about Maggi then? The flavor for once; the mouth watering Maggi tastemaker. It’s heaven. Next is the companionship in thick and thin. It unites among diversity. It’s home away from home. When I went to college, Maggi never let me feel away. When I am travelling to diverse places, I have my staple with me.
Of late I drifted away from it and got into bad habit of eating so called healthy food. I can never apologize enough to you My Dear. But you never deserted me. WhenI was hungry that night, you came to my rescue. You let me sleep peacefully.
To be true, however hard I try to find reasons why I like Maggi, I can’t find many. Maybe that’s the magic, that’s the secret. It just is immortal. It just is Meri Maggi. Cause and Effect can take a hike for once.
Life of Richard Parker
Some are meant to make you laugh, some are meant to make you think, some are meant to make you fear, some are meant to make you thrill, but once a while there comes the one to inspire. I am talking about the movie Life of Pi.
The movie was about not losing hope, to hang in there, to labor through the rough. The movie is narrated from the point of view of the protagonist Pi Patel. What about the perspective of our very own Richard Parker?
It’s a story of hope for Richard Parker too. Stranded at ocean amidst the shipwreck, how he braved the circumstances and lived on. He had to swim to the safety of the boat. He had to compromise on his ethic and eat the dead (tigers don’t eat the dead, they eat their prey), to survive. Richard learned about the need to change. Against the instinct to attack and kill Pi, he eventually learnt to become subservient. Pi was keeping him alive by providing with fish and fresh rain water after all.
However he had been kept captive by humans. He knew given a chance, Pi and its species would not hesitate to enslave him again for its pleasure. Pi owed its life to Richard as much as Richard owed his life to Pi. It was a give and take. Richard learnt the importance of freedom at ocean. When the boat reached Mexico, Richard jumped off and escaped as soon as he could. There was a good chance that he would have been captured or killed by humans had he stayed.
It was just smart of him to leave. For him it was the process to gain his freedom. It was the process to gain his life back after captivation by humans and having faced death at sea. That he didn’t kill Pi was his gratitude enough to the race that reveled in capturing and enslaving him. It was more to ask to turn back to Pi and say a good bye.
His good bye lied in gifting Pi his life. I guess it was too much for us humans to understand.
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