Digging for Meaning

I laugh at Anthony Scaramucci's exit. I get worried at US's implosion with the well written analyses . I know more about the dialysis infrastructure of US than that of India. I see daily show, last week tonight and Stephen Colbert and see their sharp criticism of their governments and I despair. Not for US. But for India. Even when US has armed militias, its liberals are not silenced. If at all, they are more dogged in their determination to shine light on shady deals, powerful incompetence, racial subjugation, and so many other things that matter to US's citizen. But our continent sized and a multiverse wide nation isn't as sharp in its defense against incompetent tyrant's plans. The liberal media in US is so good that people outside of US also start to see the world from American perspective. Recently I saw a senior professor posting about 'our national security' while the article he was sharing was about US. He didn't even realise that he was pa...

  1500 children have died in Ashram schools in last decade in Maharashtra.  Out of the countless atrocities, 16 brave women came forward to tell harrowing tales of sexual exploitation by state sponsored terrorists. These are two of the news stories that appeared in media yesterday . I got to know of them, because I recently put a Google Alert to 'adivasi'. (Because mainstream media simply does not 'cover' their lives) Otherwise, I would have not known about them as well. What if the 1500 children were not adivasis in remote Maharashtra - what if they were from affluent households in south Mumbai. How big the news event would have been then? We are as primitive in our worldviews, if not more, as our manu time ancestors and their patriarchal power games. We have not evolved one bit. Time in its passing throws up one revolutionary after another - Phule, Ambedkar - but even these giants can't illuminate the apathetic darkness of humanity's soul for long. All ...

The rabid in 21st century do not get a Rabies shot. They get to run the nation. The zombie apocalypse is already here. foaming at mouth. brains rotten . fangs out . Out to destroy the civilisation (as we dreamed of in 20th century), unmindfully. The zombies have worn different colors through the centuries and eons, so don't let the color fool you. Saffron, Green, red, cross.. all colors and symbols are rendered in blood of innocent people. The blood of weak ones who refused to become zombies. Hatred is forced through the empty minds and hearts of the gullible through the television sets and newspapers. The TV set is the scalpel and hammer that is used in the mass lobotomy. The talking heads on TV eat out the faculty of reason and empathy from the brains and hearts of the weaklings. All that remains is a tangled mass of raw twitching nerves.  They rove the country in search of other gullible idiots, whose brains they can infect with sordid tales of imagined hurt sentiments. S...

Watched 'Happy New Year' and 'Bang Bang' recently. Why do I do this to myself.. 1. The inevitability You begin watching such movies with a sense of inevitability. That you are bound to be disappointed and yet one must soldier on and watch these monstrosities. The inevitability is due part us and part the makers. us - because we are addicted to junk. Its the cola and chips we can't live without. Makers - because those assholes buy up the entirety of screen inventory. During Diwali, families do tend to go to watch movies together. Its almost a tradition in many a middle class families. and then once you reach your favourite multiplexes with their many screens, the only choice you have is the show time. the makers have put their clout to use and all screens are running the same damn film. They are 100 cr films by default. Poor (rich) junta has no option but to hope that their family does not mind the 'mindless fun'. Just look sideways while watching film ...

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/05/26/far-right-europe-election_n_5391873.html?1401104084 The Hindutva party in here and nazi anti-immigrants in Europe. Right wing parties everywhere. no one wants 'the others' on their soil. but that doesn't stop them from looting from 'the others' (colonisation & coupes & sponsored revolutions) and sending drones to kill 'the others'. where will the others go, if you contribute to their misery and downward spiral?  If the last century was about opening the world with fast rails, concordes & the internet. This century would be about making sense of this uncontrollable openness and ensuing vulnerability that individuals & groups perceive. If the last century was about the individual removed from his immediate world, this century would be about a new social consciousness of & want of belonging. The openness of last century does not really benefit the individuals and small groups as much as it does to ...

Facebook pays $19B for whatsapp. instagram goes for a billion... What kind of desperation is this? how can these acquisitions be justified? Even if you dig in numbers, there is no method to the madness - typically they would compare customer acquisition cost (which are astronomical for a category with such a low entry barrier and high attrition rates of users. And just try to realize the promised full potential of monetization - and see if the userbase doesn't evaporate.). Compare those numbers for geocities, aol, myspace, whatsapp.. (and for a sanity check, other industries). All money down the drain. Why is all the money being made in 'exits'? That is not a sustainable way for an industry to thrive. Then some talk about potential in a monopoly & ecosystems tying down people. But that's the sure sign of a dying desperate game. When the game changes from that of creating awesomeness, to cornering access - that is a sure sign of impending irrelevance. People swi...

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...

The thing with an empire is that that you can't keep on ignoring it. As biased and abrasive it might be to all things sacred, one has to deal with it, allow it in consciousness from time to time. I have managed to keep TOI out, but do read ET often. There are many things wrong with the publication. I will talk of just one instance right now (otherwise i will end up writing a thesis). Read the editorial today - ' Open up for more Foreign investment' . I haven't read a more inane editorial ever before. well, that is perhaps because I skip editorials most of the time. I understand that editorials have become lobby vehicles. But can't they be atleast intelligent? Is a well researched argument too much to ask for from the biggest business daily of the country? First off, what is it with ET's love for FDI ? If ET were a doctor, it would be a road side haqim (wearing neck tie in a Air conditioned tent, modern haqim) Like an unqualified quack, ET keeps on pr...

Ajit Pawar is the deputy CM of Maharashtra. Its unfortunate that I share his surname. He is a symbol of what is wrong with India. Like Rahul Gandhi, he is benefited by his lineage. The only reason people like these get to the 'throne' is because of the horrible nepotism that characterizes Indian politics. Watch this video to understand why people like these should be banished from the country, let alone 'rule' it. http://ibnlive.in.com/news/maharashtra-ajit-pawar-apologises-for-his-urine-remark/383783-37-64.html The deputy CM, angrily reacts to the 55 day fast of 'some Deshmukh' in view of drought in Maharashtra. 1. How he reacted? He reacted angrily. He trivialized not only the fast, but the terrible drought tragedy that is claiming lives and livelihood in Maharashtra. This aspect was covered in media, shockingly so much is left out by media!  2. Reacted against what? The fast. 55 days of fast! I was shocked. Isn't that news worthy by itself? how ...

It was around 10 o clock. I was hungry - about to cook dinner. But for the next 15 minutes, I was stalled by one thing. It wasn't a phone call, it wasn't a neighbor, it wasn't a pressing task, nor nature's call. It was me. I was looking through my music folder, searching for a few good tracks to play. Couldn't decide on anything. Then I turned on the TV app on my PC - nothing interesting was on. I went through my movie folder, but didn't feel like watching any movie. So for 15 minutes, I was scrambling around trying to find sounds that I could hear while cooking. As time went by, I was getting more and more bothered for not finding anything. Then I wondered - why do I need sounds really?  How much time in a day do i spend in quiet by myself? I live alone and yet I am never quite alone. I am either reading something, talking to someone, watching some video or listening to music. Days on end I spend, consuming media - incessantly. I realized something els...

Sundays are sacred days. Not in a religious sense. But in its ability to shift the gear of time, in its ability to lend lightness and calm energy to the air. Lunch happens late, dinner comes early. Tea and kahwaa materialise by their own whim on the sole strength of habit. Movies and novels can and do get consumed. But its the new lazy toys, Picassa and Photoshop, that witness the deceleration of time. Without aim, the tinkering starts. and ends. Today was no different. Saw yeh saali zindagi, a film that could have done without some of its twists and turns. Then collated footage of lightnings for a future project. Uploaded a few pics to my pinterest page and compulsively checked if someone had liked/ repinned any of my pics. Then gave up after a while. Slept. washed clothes. Then saw another episode of Monty Python. Read a short story by Haruki Murakami about a couple who get hungry in the night and rob a Mcdonald's store for 30 of their burgers. an...

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...

I am gravely worried for the fate of India’s cultural empire. More than the Indian army or its embassies and aid packages, it’s the movie machine of Mumbai that has helped India raise its cultural flag beyond India. From Afghanistan to Japan, from Russia to south east Asia, Bollywood has found devout followers everywhere. This cultural advocacy helps corporate bodies when they march their imperialist marches into these countries. Hey, a dancing, overtly emotional Indian is better than a Kung-fu fighting Chinese.   But, Bollywood is losing its hold here at home. Its becoming a caricature of it's imagined self. The ‘desi’ moviegoer is increasingly being subjected to only Punjabi and Gujarati London/Canada dreams. The mainstream movies are rarely even shot in India at all. Since the moneyed few rules what is to be made, the available palette is primarily composed of galling stories of people falling in love in some white suburb of NY or some such world of big white people, where surpr...

A colleague sent an ad that recently came out. Its for Wildstone talc and it aims for making men feel ashamed for using the normal talc which had traditionally been targeted to women. Its very humorous and does a good work of accentuating men's anxiety about their manliness. Perhaps, a sustained effort on this front with a few more players joining in would certainly create enough anxiety amongst men not to use 'women's talc'. It has already happened in a lot of other categories. The reportage and analysis about matters of creation of sub-segments is peppered with words such as 'progress' 'maturity of market'. They are not wrong.. creation of segments is symptomatic of growing purchasing power, increased nucleation of needs.. a movement to western style first-worldliness if you will. But it is also symptomatic of a greater humanistic and social malaise. Sonal talks at her blog about the collective conscience that brands of yesteryears built is non...

I can never fathom that its already 2010. 2010! shouldn't cars be flying, and armies of clones being produced. and where are our spaceships and aliens? its so unreal. every time i have to write the date, it takes some thinking before accepting that what i am writing as current year is an actuality. that the world is not as fantastical, and won't be for a while. My sense of time  has stuck at 1999 apparently. the world was to end with Y2K or WWIII or famines or floods or meteor strikes. well, the world has had tastes of all these at places, but mostly we are ok. Anyways, so there are 2 theories we came up with to explain it all. 1. mademoiselle sonal jhuj says that this is due to the fact that our childhood was spent in 90s. in school we had to write dates in school note books every day. hence we were always aware of the time. once we got out of school, we were divorced from the practice of writing date everyday. and hence we lost the anchor that the date column was. drifti...

I have a hypothesis. which is really an extension of thought. but to present it, i must develop a context.(or trend-spotting as they call it) 1. nucleated world -> people are connected to more people far more thinly. (a lot of hi's, hello's, how are you's.. very few hugs, time-spent-together's, ILUs.) 2. people removed from cause-effect ->  most of us have no clue what their salary paying job's effect is in the world around, due to matters of scale and transferability of work. (did my work as biz develpment for a media company went into funding his accentuated war advocating rhetoric?; did my design for valve go into the bombs that shelled afghanistan's villages? is all that incessant printing in office and penchant for cleanliness causing felling of millions of trees?) this ignorance of cause-effect also alienates us from what we consume. take that burger out of your mouth and see what's inside. can you name all that goes into it? did u know where it ...

Dear TV, you suck! well not you exactly - what with flat screens and awesome contrast and sound.. the miracle of moving picture - but what you show through you. its not just the inanity being reinforced and the vulgar being deified, but also countless many little things that is turning my fellow media addicts into little rats/rabbits (depending on your favorite chapter of alice in wonderland); seemingly in coma while in front of your glittering rectangular self. due to you, my left hand thumb has got a weird disease which makes it go click click in infinite loops on the remote control. well, in part my fraternity is to blame as well for your demise. but hey, we are earning our bread and trying to be happy while at it. we have right to both. sorry to strangulate you and the viewer in the process though. besides we only give what the viewer wants. its another matter that the viewer doesn't always know what he needs and what all this communication will do to him/her in the long run. p...

"Money can't buy happiness... But somehow its more comfortable to cry in a BMW than smile on a bicycle".. This is an SMS forward I got from a friend. Somehow its all very ugly. This importance of 'comfort'. Why is comfort so important to people? It completely escapes me. Comfort should be optional, and life should be primary. It absolutely pains me to see people giving up brilliant opportunities, ignoring sublime beauty around to explore, just to continue floating in their continuum of comfort. I can't stand people who would shy away from adventure, natural beauty for the sake of comfort. what kind of life do you see for yourself, if the objective of it becomes to lead a comfortable life? These people wouldn't even chase better comfort if the chase is uncomfortable. :P reducing life to mere existence when you can do more. what would these folks do in time of depression, of hardship, of scarcities. all of a sudden, your purpose of being stripped away from ...