Digging for Meaning

Context: Out from a deep slumber, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India has gotten into a hyper active mode. It started with discovery of Maggi making us eat poison . Soon it turned out, half the products that we daily depend on for maintaining our lifestyle are fucking with us one way or another. Aftermath: Some people have stopped using some of these products. But the most visible and loud portion of Indian humanity - the upper middle class that is active on social media - has responded in a surprising fashion (and hence this blog). They feel cheated! They sense a rat - not in the product, but in the discovery. They have responded with a sense of loss. They see it as an an unjust act of aggression by the government. They see it as an attack on their way of life. See this idiotic video for instance. What does this reaction mean? 1. People trust companies more than government in India. Edelman's trust barometer had found out that earlier. But this episode...

  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.

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...

Indian middle class is many things. one of it is being insanely twisted in its logic and morality. let me give you a few examples. 1. a friend was telling me how a relative of hers questioned her staying in andheri saying 'all the girls in andheri smoke.. u want to smoke that's why you want to stay in andheri.' :P hilarious, yes. but i cannot begin to fathom the way we micro-stereotype everything, especially about women and 'behavior'. 2. while in a group, we were discussing how Urdu had evolved in India and its rich heritage.then the discussion veered to, how urdu is not the native language of Kashmir, with ladakhis, dogris and kashmiri being the most spoken.(this was in context of compulsory education of Urdu to ladakhi kids whose mother tounge is not Urdu.) all of a sudden, a apparently well educated engineer amongst us says 'they should ban urdu'.. asked why, he said 'because this is hindustan. why advocate a muslim language' i was left speechle...