Digging for Meaning

26th June is apparently the international day against drug addiction. It was also the day we decided to see a manipuri dance show . It was after reaching the venue that we realised that the Manipuri dance show owed its existence to the ministry of culture/ anti drug body of Indian govt. So as is wont to happen in such a circumstance, there was less of dance and more singing of paeans for the officials who 'made it possible'. The dance recital that was to start at 7 30, started at around 8:45. and yet, none of the audience members left the hall before the end of the show.. presumably because besides us (we are extremely patient people), almost every body else (all 30 of them) were in some way related to the performers. Firstly, the purported purpose. The government spent the money it did on this show for the purpose of spreading awareness about the harms of drugs. According to officials who bored us with 1990's slides presentation, the main Target audience for the commu...

http://online.wsj.com/articles/book-review-a-time-to-attack-by-matthew-kroenig-1403220920 The link is to a WSJ review of a book written by an apparent trigger happy lunatic. The book in question is called 'a time to attack'. Clue no. 1 about the psychiatric help that the author needs. How should one read this? 1. The conclusion is the title, why read the rest of the book? who wants to read a story without any suspense? who  reads a story backwards? The answer is, the ones who are in agreement, but are either  in conflict with self over that position or want to be able to convince others. So the book is obviously not for people who want to figure things out or understand the very complicated situation that we are in. (Why not 'the Iran problem'/ 'the nuclear question') It is for the ones who are too impatient to appreciate complexities and want simple 'final' answers. People who seek vicarious fulfillment in abstract far away conflicts in a bid to ...

5 years is a long time if you say it out loud. "5 years!" Its been that long since i started earning money, being responsible & having a routine. and that little fact is unfathomable. firstly, because the expectations I had for myself and the reality of my self just don't match up, any which way. and yet, I am oddly content. (even if I have created nothing awesome yet.) (and contentedness finds me from various other directions.) Secondly, as you get 'experienced' in something, it gets that much more easier to advance in the same field, get better at it rather than moving in other directions. *alarm bells* (or rather those dub step horns from Inception ) Thirdly, the opportunities are sure to dwindle as you take on higher and higher responsibilities unless you can reinvent/ repurpose yourself. (How many national planning directors can there be in a country?) Hence the criticality of the decision. so that brings me to my current dilemma. Here I want to sha...

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 ...

The security guards at the entrance of your typical mall is the new brahmin. Both flay around their hands in ritualistic nuisances. The older ritual-peddler would throw in flowers and water creatively, the new one runs a beep-beep metal detector in the air around us. Both are pretenses to comfort the incessantly worrying minds. Our  minds often wander in search of answers to questions that have no answers. and we just can't fathom the fact that some questions are plain wrong - that chasing them would never give you answers, only anxieties. As our world gets more and more critically complex, we would see emergence of newer and newer rituals: Unique identity cards, police with guns (even if they might not know how to operate them), walls, courts, child locks, the education system based on silly exams, audit firms, research firms and most of all advertising. Even if a rational mind realises all these institutions & acts as pretenses, one can't stop seeking consolation ...

[This is a ridiculous news story] Delhi: The complaining voices are getting shriller. Cars are increasingly annoyed by the usurpers called humans who are encroaching their territory. It is a bad time to be a car, many say. They look back to a time when a car could go 10 feet without having to break (legs of pedestrian humans and dogs). A visibly upset old Ambassador was shouting "Get off our roads" picketing in front of the gate that separated the largely parking lot city that belonged to cars and the small ramshackle settlement earmarked for humans and dogs. "The mindless humans keep on throwing themselves onto us" barked a young Swift Dzire, eying an opportunity to be in the limelight of my esteemed journalistic magnificence. "They very well know that roads are for cars... along with any open space, footpaths, potholes, alley ways and the first few steps to any house. Yet they keep on treading on our territory." The weaker section of humans have...

3 reasons why democracy as we know today is a waste of intentions, time, money and opportunity. It is a costly mistake that needs to be corrected. 1. Rule of the elite The word Democracy is an antonym of Aristocracy - the rule of an elite. Yet, the elected representative turn into elite the day he/she gets elected. For a true representative democracy, the representative must remain a representative of the constituency - socially, morally, financially... What is the point of this charade if the representative goes and sits in the capital and leads an entirely alien life to that of the constituency he represents. For a representative to be a 'representative' - he /she should share enough common traits, concerns, social condition with his/her constituency. There must be rules regarding the validity of candidature and his class & geographical mobility. For eg. if the candidate becomes x-times richer than the average enrichment of his constituency, his candidature must auto...