Digging for Meaning

When you look at the history of middle east, you realise one thing - The mess we are in today, is in REACTION to impositions of ideas alien to the natives. For example - 1. King Shah of Iran forced secularism on a people for whom their religiosity was important. The reaction was the cultural revolution that overthrew the monarch and installed in its stead a religious leader at the helm of a nation. 2. Erdogan is turning a secular state into an Islamic state in Turkey with fairly popular support. This is in reaction to Ataturk's imposition of secularism in the first half of 20th century. 3. Saudi Arabia's extremist version of Islam is propelled elsewhere, in part because people feel their religiosity is under threat from western imperialism. And obviously, the Saudi monarchs are well aware of the case of another monarch in Iran being ousted who suppressed religion. So they double down on religious fervour and have weaponised the world view. 4. and ofcourse the whole mess i...

There. said it. This should force me to do it everyday.  Recently, I decided to 'become' a writer. By this I mean, being more committed to write things that build up to something. As against, random posts here and other blogs. (this blog was, among other things, once called 'Repository of random hearts'.) I want to write stories, novels and useful thought-through articles. I want to write because I believe there is a shocking paucity of ' utopias ' and ideas of future of humanity currently in popular imagination. I think I have the imagination and the ability to dream of better futures for us that we can use to then achieve. Action starts with ideas. Unfortunately, most ideas these days are either dystopian (Look at all the hollywood movies these days. The world is forever ending it seems. Or worldwide trends - right wing xenophobia, a sense of overwhelming inevitability of capitalism.) or very narrow minded (Look at tech - of all the things that are possibl...

 This was written in response to a Quora question .  The question was " Why trend to purchase bullet bikes increased in India? " I think bikes (as most other things) are bought not only for its functional relevance but for its psychological relevance. (If you can commute ably with a 35k bike, why would you spend a lakh more on a bike which essentially is a bulkier, less advanced machine?) The purchase of bullet is purely a matter of fulfilling a psychological need. So the question is - what is the psychological need being met by Bullets and why are more people in India feeling that particular need? Bullet is uniquely manly. While Pulsar is 'definitely male', it is also immature. Pulsar is boyish, bullet is manly. Most fared bikes are positioned to younger audiences. They answer the need of adrenaline rush.. what we call 'potency needs'. Its the quintessential teenage need to feel on the edge. Bullet is not for these men (boys). Bullet has been t...

 and why not claim to be diarrheatic, malarial and other more plausible conditions? " Plastinated Human Body Worlds San Diego " by Pattymooney - Own work . Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons . body v/s  mind shame. Blame it on Christianity, blame it on conservative idiots around the world - body is just not what it used to be. Covered with clothes, body is the eternal source of shame. So when a body system goes haywire, the instinct is to hide it. concrete v/s vague Body, by virtue of being available to touch, smell, see to ourselves; is real to us. It's existence is concrete and finite. Reality is solvable. Reality is boring. The working of mind remains a delicious enigma. A mystery that is for the most part, unyielding to human curiosity. Or even when it does yield, it peels out in confusing different directions. old v/s new Conditions of the body have been known to us from long ago.. well atleast that is what we assume. Awareness of...

Absolute identity The world wants you to know for sure, what you want to be. Ads, movies, inspiring talking heads.. all want you to 'find yourself'. You believe in absolute identity. The belief that there is one possible ideal future for you and it is your primary duty to 'find' that future. The concept of 'finding' is quite alluring. It is not as heavy as the concept of doing or making. It is rife with possibilities. It doesn't kill possibilities. It celebrates the 'potential'. And 'potential' talks to you about the awesome you that no one knows about, but you surely do. 'Potential' stalls your actions, for who do you really need to prove, if not yourself? And in that sedentary search, you end up doing nothing. So scared of walking in any other direction than 'the one for you', that you would rather 'wait'. Fluid Identity Your future is uncertain. Future always is. What if you stop trying to fight tha...

Exhibit 1a. Girl wearing a chuda, off for clubbing late at night This is one of those simplistic visual tropes one might expect in any 'tradition meets modernity' narrative. In one of the automobile brand ads, I believe there is one such shot too. (the brand champions the insight about modernity being tempered by the Indian youth in Indian terms. What this assumes is - to be Indian is to be ritualistic. and to be urban/modern is to reject the rituals. Brands come to rescue us here and provides an in between truce. 'adjust kar lo'.) Usually the narrative is set in the premise of 'victory of the young', as 'smart strategist'. Smart strategy - yes - to the extent that traditions and modernity, both are reduced to mere symbols that are entertained for maintaining the status quo. That's the strategy- to strip our acts off their meanings. Why wear a chuda? ' I am supposed to. must be the right thing. I am confident now of being Indian. Thi...

Moustaches. They are an endangered species. Not many nations and men wear them anymore. Ok, so Stalin and Hitler wore one, but that doesn't mean all moustaches are evil. They aren't the voodoos of gods of mayhem. They do not have a mind of their own. They are quite harmless really. well, most of the time. (tip1 - mind your kisses and curries for a healthy relationship with your moustache) Don't listen to what your mom tells you. For them moustache is a sign of you growing out of their nests. That's perhaps unsettling for them, it should not be for you. Do not listen to your love interest as well. Unless she has some rare hair-phobia, hair should never really be important enough topics of interest between two people in love. (which in reverse, essentially means, you shouldn't really be bothering her about her decision to wax or not to wax  her feet.) Imagine a couple on the arrange-a-marriage date. q1. Do you smoke? q2. Do you drink? q3. Do you plan to keep...

I have 445 people on my friend's list on Facebook. 41 yet waiting on invite list. What does it mean? If I pass by these 486 people on the street, would we stop, genuinely smile and have a conversation? Would we really care when we would ask 'how are you?'. I know of these people, mostly. Some of them are really close friends. Some are people I would like to be friends to. But most others are only joined by an association. Mostly through my post graduate school, MICA. If I do a test of walking by all these 486 people, how many would I have to remove from the list? why should I be bothered by this number really? Well, primarily cause it confuses me. Is it right for me to see these photos? should i comment? how will they perceive my comment? With people you know closely enough there is no space for these questions. There are handful of people who I would turn to for any sort of help .There are a few more with whom I would like to share stuff.  The rest are mostly irrelevant...

 The Indian auto rickshaw is made for at max carrying 3 reasonably weighing people. But often I see families haggling with the driver to let one or two more people crowd in the small backseat. The fact is that just the shopping of an average Indian family will require an auto rickshaw, let alone the big fussy family. They don't want to go separately. Its not that they can't afford to get 2 autos. But they would not even want to travel apart. Family that shops together, eats together, laughs together also travels together. A vehicle is an enabler. It could have identity connotation, but its not as personal as .. say a cell phone is. (A recent research we did found out that for people, cell phone is the most personal thing. The man shared everything with his wife, but not his cell phone.) As against say US, where a car that can carry 4 people, is used by an individual. It's perhaps the strongest personal identity statement there. (correct me if I am wrong.) So while for Indi...

[upon re reading this, i realised that the thoughts i put here are half baked and not conclusive enough to make a strong argument.. nevertheless.... ] Every time i hear the national anthem, i have goosebumps. the patriotic feeling that strong. I don't quite understand this, cause I feel the notion of nation to be quite artificial. Physical borders really don't make much sense where physical resources alone no longer are the only things of consequence. Distances have been dissolved in this electronic age. I might be friends to people anywhere in the world, and we might bond over music and hatred than over national patriotism. (hmm.. so is nationalism just another vehicle for channeling hatred (accelerated competitiveness).. cuz being humans, we need to hate something..don't we?) We are global citizens, all our actions affect each other. As such, besides sports and some strategic geographical areas, there is no other avenue where notion of nation makes sense. Elsewhere somewh...

It all started with emoticons. the simple one's - :P, ;) the anime one's - (0_0) , (u_u), (^-^)b... then avatars in chat. Secondlife took it to a whole other level, where an alternate reality is constructed. It is an internet based virtual world launched in 2003, developed by Linden Research, Inc . A downloadable client program called the Second Life Viewer enables its users, called "Residents", to interact with each other through motional avatars, providing an advanced level of a social network service combined with general aspects of a metaverse. Residents can explore, meet other Residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, and create and trade items (virtual property) and services with one another. (source - wikipedia article) well, the real thing of consequence about second life is that, that it has a virtual currency - Linden Dollar (Linden, or L$) and is exchangeable for real world currencies in a resident to resident marketplace fac...