Digging for Meaning

We, the people, are gullible idiots. C'mon, admit it. We have all been bullied into bad deals by powerful charlatans at some point or another. Governments are no different. The current one is getting away with our personal data and going about distributing our public resources and monies to its favourite cronies.This is no exceptional government. This happens all the time, in all the countries - to varying degrees. The varying part is important. I would much rather be in Norway where the leeway for such giveaways against the interest of public is small, compared to Angola and Nigeria where the oil bonanza instead has become oil curse. One of the important ways for moving towards Norway and away from Nigeria is for the public to become aware and educated about power. Education is a bad word now - what India creates in not educated people, it creates literate minions. By educated, i mean people who can reason, who can think critically, who can see the world from different perspect...

  There was a crazy old lady who mesmerised the capitalist folks back in the era of cold war, with her emotional appeal to their selfish egos. She was successful because, she managed to turn cold selfishness into a virtue. She made usurpation morally palatable. She made individuality that destroys social fabric of communities, a morally superior choice.  While I understand her perspective coming as it was from a immigrant fleeing communist excesses, I don't understand today's people still seeking inspirations in the nonsensical steam-letting of an old woman whose grip on reality was heavily coloured and biased by narrow experiences and perspectives. Her name was Ayn Rand and she legitimised her biases by giving it a name - objectivism. One of Ayn Rand's most famous character is a certain 'John Galt' - a maverick engineer who  organises a strike among the world's smartest, most creative entrepreneur and artists and thereby - "stops the motor of th...

  Why be slaves? Why willingly restrict your blood circulation? Why bear a silly symbol around your neck which typically signifies you as an owned subject - the very replaceable non-individuating member of the docile serving class? Why wear suit in a hot place like India? Its a fucking environmental crime to wear a suit and then turn up the air conditioning of the mammoth offices to suit your sartorial compulsions.  Wear a lungi while in Chennai. Wear shorts while in Mumbai. Businesses should adapt to regions.  Not the other way round.

Chomsky apparently is a 'Contrarian'. Amartya Sen is 'anti growth'.  Labels come easy, comprehension not so. Chomsky is 84 and Amartya Sen is 79 - Both have spent major part of their lives in bringing to light facts and ideas that the mainstream and the powerful want to dust under the carpet. They are not attention seekers and side show freaks. They are heroes, the few brave ones who are fighting for well being of people through justice and truth.  and these heroes get branded as 'Contrarian' and 'anti growth'. The question to be asked is - by whom? Often these are people who don't read enough or don't read what should be read. They do not (or don't want to) comprehend the effect of ideas.(who benefits? how so? at what cost?). The ones whose source of perspective is Arnab Goswami and such other sensationalist prime time TV trash. For them, ideas are like fashionable clothes or a recent movie - useful as social conversations and nothing be...

Uncertain fists in the air Raised for causes ill understood. Uncertain fists as proofs of desperate existence,pumped in empty air. The proof of a life lived sustained on the noxious fanning of outrages. The sadness and badness of the world continuously pumped through the digital veins of the world. The connected soul, battered incessantly by the tidal waves of outrages. Before comprehension can dawn, submerged in another outrage. skin thin outrage, blood thick issues wasp's lifespan worth interest ageless reality man. disconnect. DISCONNECT.

Do you think you are an aam aadmi? you are a voyeur in the great playground of this nation. You are outside the playground. You are a consumer. you earn your white collar dollars and spend it on processed snacks and shiny things. and that's the only thing that excites you or the people high up. They are concerned with nothing else about you. Sadly, neither are you. The only things that hold your gaze are TV and your ever expanding belly. The shining rectangles are narrowing your minds and squeezing out all empathy you've got . You whine for a while when shit happens. But won't try to affect any change. At this moment you pick up the placards in the name of aam aadmi and walk in circles in your living room. But there's nothing 'aam' about how you see yourself. You are world unto you. That world is small but richly invested with your emotions. That narrow world doesn't entertain logic or differing opinions. Once painted with a favorite color, the personal b...

In a world full of orphans, will anyone ever feel the heartache of absent parents? Can you feel the absence of something that you never knew existed? ___ There are people who warn about the end of the world and then there are people who debunk it and laugh at the scare-mongerers. But the truth is both are right in their posturing. The world is ending in a certain sense that the first group of people are aware of and scared therefore. For them what is getting lost is precious and irreplaceable. Our children won't miss the chirping of birds that we grew up with. For some of us, its an end of a world that was pristine and beautiful. We didn't just lose the common sparrow, we lost the complete world beyond the 'me'. The high pitched chirping used to yank us out of our small world and present to us the beautiful world of colors and sounds and lightness; a world where little selfish creatures seduce the captive leaves and indulge in bantering with the winds. People who ...

Earlier today I wrote here about Coke's new advertisement. Essentially I made an argument that its an irresponsible communication from a corporate giant who is not acting responsibly on ground and spreading message of hope through commercial communications. This two faced-ness is dangerous to our generation and a big bane for the health of our earth. However a dear friend made a valid point. That by creating ruckus with such campaigns, I am essentially robbing people of the optimism that these campaigns create. and this made me think. Is it right for me (or for any individual for that matter) to critically question everything even at the cost of causing displeasure? Is it more important for a people to be happy than being truthfully aware of what they are being subjected to? On a personal level too, I have faced this dilemma often and am now only beginning to learn to hold my views when the person i am talking to is not ready to listen to any contrarion thought or that the moment...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vKDOWAf5M8&feature=player_embedded Sorry, can't seem to embed it here...  See this new commercial by coca-cola. Coca-cola: the glorious fizz drink maker who are making this world better by spreading happiness apparently (through making us drink pesticide laced poison and depleting our water table and spreading violence against labor union & wreaking local communities in  Guatemala and many other places) This wonderful ad comes at a wonderful time in the history of the world. The planning team did an impeccable job, I must say. The world is in deep shit. People need consolation. People want to hear that the world will be better again. They can go gorge on ridiculous amounts of cheese, steaks and Mchumanity without any consequence. And lo and behold... the ad delivers exactly that. However i have this urge to rip apart this charade of idiotic optimism which is nothing short of criminal. its perpetuating exactly the same mindset ...

This post also features in my FutureChallenges blog with a few edits here .  _______ We are living in a fucked up world. For every incidence of sexual violence I get to know of experienced by my friends, a sickening feeling overcomes me & fills me with dread. dread for the many girls who will never tell their experience to anyone. dread for the unimaginably horrible world we live in. If very close friends too share such experiences only when they are sure that they won't be judged, I shudder to think of how many of the women I interact with everyday or pass by would have had to go through such ordeals as well. Is any woman/girl/child safe at all in this country? We might build walls. we might only travel in our own cars and never in the dead of the night. But is it any safer? How can it be any safer for women, if their world is built on the notions of shame, purity, 'decency' and so on? By defining our 'culture' squarely on the basis of men's rig...