The Right to CHANGE

Once my young cousin asked me, “All politicians are corrupt, aren’t they?” When I asked him if he knew exactly how a politician is elected, the reply was as expected from a standard six kid, no. he had the notion of politicians being corrupt even before knowing who the politicians are. To him, it meant a bad someone who dresses in white, is least educated and takes away people’s money. And it is not his fault; he says what he listens around. I am myself no expert in civics, but I know that my vote selects him, just like yours.

Anywhere you go, travelling in train, in a tea shop, outside a shopping mall or in college hostels, you’ll always find heated discussions on politics, which quickly moves on to a discussion on politicians. This is the only example of discussions that are both one-sided and heated. I haven’t ever heard discussions on whether or not a particular debatable bill should be passed or not, but I have certainly heard discussions on which politician did what, who is more corrupt, who got arrested, and got away. And it really gets interesting with new faces on the controversial front every day, and new jaw dropping scams every other.

When the proposals of important bills are put forward, there isn’t much debate and opposition. And just bring forth an issue like Ram Setu or installation of nuclear power plants, which should be allowed without hype, the political and social machinery comes alive. I had expected much more debate and discussions on the FDI bill, but there wasn’t much. Especially in the youth. Students’ discussions are like “who is better, SRK or Sallu?” ever heard “should the cap on number of LPG cylinders be raised?” Last involvement of youth in political matters before the Delhi gang rape case was when reservation bill was passed, and that was long ago.

We shout hard if there’s any violation of any of our fundamental rights. We even run to help someone else with ‘right’ problems. That’s good, but what happens when it comes to our fundamental duties? We know and exercise our rights, but do we remember our duties? Do we complain of someone deviating from his duties, let alone ourselves be responsible? We don’t commit to simple, small  but important duties like voting. And we expect full rights. Do you expect an invitation to your friend’s party after you have thrashed and abused him? As a friend you ‘had’ the right, no more now.

There are serious misinterpretations of our constitution and civil governance amongst our generation. The whole system is rotten, we say. We forget that our constitution was written by the greatest minds and think tanks that could have written it. And it was written predicting every possibly future condition. Provisions in the constitution are such that our democracy is infallible. It is the longest constitution of the world, because it is also the best (a globally and widely accepted fact) and it almost caters to the fundamental rights of each and every individual of our infinitely diverse country.

You might say and I will agree that many of the culprits live an easy jail life, because of the provisions in the constitution. But is the news regarding arrest of innocent people common? No. the provisions were made to guarantee true justice and not just a fast one. Obviously, the courts are sometimes even slower than that, but the case of Ajmal Kasab is an example that true justice was served, following every constitutional rules in a small time. In his case, life sentence was announced within three years of the conviction, including the time devoted solely to extracting important details form him regarding terrorist activities, which accounted for a huge chunk of that time. And regarding harsh corporal punishments, three years isn’t a very long time.

Of course, despite its greatness, out constitution needs amendments, and very helpful provisions were made even for that, but the amendments would only work if politicians table a bill, and pass it by majority. This is where, everyone agrees, the problem stands. Not in framing the constitution, but in execution. Taking a few steps back, and taking a look on the big picture, it’s clearly visible where the actual problem lies. If the MP’s and the MLA are bad considering they are not bringing forth the required bills, or voting in its favor, then who elected them in the first place? How are they there? And why are ‘they’ there and not us?

It’s in our mentality to just sit back and blame the politics for everything happening. And click ‘like’ on the pictures of some honest politician such as Arvind Kejriwal or put a black dot in the profile picture to protest something. As if blaming and black ‘dotting’ will bring any change. Instead, real change is needed. And that doesn’t require a revolution, or a fast, or a digital anarchy. In times like this, where almost no political party is willing to bring a change, stand up, and bring it yourself. Easier said, but seeing a stand, many and many of the people needing just an initiative will stand up with you, and a few against.

As the Mahatma said, be the change you want to see.

(Some even stood against Gandhi, and his stand on truth, the biggest weapon against corruption today which he foresaw. Can you find those protestors today?)

God…and the illogical logic behind

It was ‘Dhanteras’ that day and an article in the newspaper said that if you buy something this day, the goddess of wealth, ‘Lakshmi’ (as if she exists!) will bestow her generosity upon you. Logically, if you buy something, you’ll have to pay for it and you can only get a little poorer! If buying something can make a person richer (nonsense, but still let us somehow assume), the rich who can buy will be richer and the poor, poorer. So god is the one (actually he isn’t one-there are 360,000 in Hinduism alone) directly responsible for the divide between haves and have not’s! God!

God is no good, and people know it. The difficult part is accepting it. Had god been good, would there have been natural calamities, where thousands die, irrespective whether they are saints or terrorists? Would there have been criminal tendencies in people’s mind-for crime, corruption and dishonesty? Would there have been disease and illness like cancer and AIDS, wiping off lakhs off the planet? Any explanation? Still believing that god exists, and that too he is ‘good’ is like believing that earth is flat and sun revolves around it!

If you see a mother crying her child’s dead body or a terminal stage cancer patient being consoled by his relatives that it will be all right despite knowing that it won’t, or a handicapped child trying to stand up and fall instead and you still believe in god being good, you need to consult a doctor. A mental one. Urgently.

All that’s there is nature, and its creator, who is up to no other good than ensuring continuation of survival of species. Survival of the fittest, not the ‘best’. On this very context, you can’t call a tiger sinful for killing a deer, despite the emotional strings attached to it. (Animals have emotions too, remember? Sometimes better than mankind.)

Doing good won’t get you anywhere. This concept that doing ‘good’ is indeed good was made only so that there isn’t a total anarchy (to keep people from slitting each other’s throat and ending up alone). Believe me when I say evil will make you more prosperous than by doing good. Pick up any famous personality, successful businessman, each has an evil story behind him. And once you achieve success, no one cares about your sins. So there are only two types of people on earth: the rich and the good. Choose one.

Anyway, getting back, all of us have come across the supernormal devotion (?) people have for god. Unnecessary is a better word. They pick up bells and that metal plates and bang it at the top-decibel ranges, in a hope that god will hear them directly from heaven. Like you can shout your voice to your relative in Delhi, while sitting in Ranchi. Instead first confirm whether a relative exists at all in Delhi. Even if after knowing there isn’t, if you need to contact this non-existent being, try the cellphone. Same way, you can close your eyes and feel closer to god, then you can talk in a normal tone to him, if need be. No need of carrier waves.

I once quoted the example of a temple in my state, and I state it again. There, in a room about 10 feet by 10 feet, about five dozen people pray together at a time, many not even getting to touch the holy ‘stone’. How can you concentrate on connecting to god when you are in a suffocating room, with your soul desperate to leave your body and hence the room? It is far better a pray, if you do that from your home, in front of His pic. And if they are so much bent on believing in god, why don’t they let him rest peacefully, instead of banging bells and shouting hymns day and night long.

Just imagine yourself smeared with all that milk, sticky honey, leaves, inhaling incense smoke 24x7, people singing the same song to you in a terrible voice (most religious agents have a croaky voice, like mine) throughout the year, no time to sleep, waking up at daybreak, with people cutting goats at your feet, offering you the most delicious food but you are not able to eat it (have you ever seen god eating the ‘Prasad’ you offer?)….and the list goes on. Students are a step ahead in disturbing god’s peace, the last bits of what’s left of it. We wake him up a three in the night, praying to get better marks in the exam the following morning. This is the reason, I decipher for my meager marks. It’s a revenge god takes for disturbing his peace.  Why don’t we just let him be?

Why’s the need to give this ‘godly’ treatment to someone who hasn’t given you anything? To get it straight, whatever little or phenomenal achievement you have, it’s all because of you and you deserved it. No one can take it away from you. If you’ll be successful, you won’t start giving a heavenly treatment to the first stranger you meet on the road for your success, despite having no contribution in your it, apart from being the fortunate stranger to cross you on the road.

Just do good for yourself, your family and well-wishers, obviously without causing anyone else any discomfort, including the almighty, and good will happen. If you shift your focus on god, obviously you’ll lose focus on the job at hand. So don’t lose your focus to god (yeah He is a distraction, and a good one at it). Work, learn, earn, enjoy.

Those understanding that they have what they deserve don’t need god. It’s for those who don’t. For them, it’s just a symbol to blame, to ask strength from. I said good is god. But the good don’t need god.

The city of Joy

Kolkata is a city (I bet you knew that!)  by the people, certainly for the people and undoubtedly full of people! Being there with some of my friends this puja, it proved why it’s worth a visit, and why it’s nicknamed such.

A yellow ambassador with ‘taxi’ written on it passing you with a huge metal suspension bridge in the backdrop tells you Kolkata is near. Before even entering the city, I found three ‘pandals’ in the same patch of land, combinely almost covering the whole area (by the way combinely is no word). I wondered and am still wondering on the need of three in the same place! Now as I stepped out of my train onto the platform, I was almost thrown back in by a swarming and near-stampeding crowd. Thin as I am, I made my way out to find my friends waiting. Can’t tell you how good it is to see a familiar face in a teeming crowd!

It is the fifth time I was there, and each time the city throws something new for me, and meanwhile preserving what I loved the most, its classic British culture. It’s where you can almost see the times of British raj, with sahibs living in vintage homes, served by many helping hands. The future is also here, from the sky high Newtown and South city mall to the regal estates piercing the city’s skyline.

And you can’t find a city with more means of transportation. Auto-rickshaw, rickshaw, hand pulled rickshaw (that’s just three types of rickshaw), taxi, buses, tram, metro and local trains (that’s again three types of railways). I hope one day I’ll find motorcycles used to taxi people around the city, going by the crowd and the jams.

It also a rags to riches city. Not that you’ll get richer here, but this is because I saw a stunning BMW car overtake a maruti 800, the day I got there. There are shops selling 100 a piece shirts in front of branded showrooms where you can’t get to even try a shirt unless you have a 1000 in your wallet. (It’s a different point that both of the products are actually the same, but more on that later). As one of my friends very correctly observed that people were ready to pay 50 for an unworthy coffee in café for the fools nicked CCD, they didn’t had a penny to spare on the feeble old man sitting outside the same. (I myself couldn’t spare my sandwich I was having to a supposedly begging kid, saying that I was equally hungry as him… … but he was wearing a nice new t shirt and jeans, wasn’t a beggar by any means!)

The women here are beyond compare. Almost all of them would find it easier to push their way through the crowds using their elbows, instead of going for the clear path nearby. It has been quite difficult to understand their intentions. And the gushing crowd induces fears of pickpocketing and what not in your mind. And there’s only one way to avoid it. Keep your hands on your assets (monetary assets, to be particular, if you are thinking otherwise). But this is still a problem while travelling in buses, where your hands are too busy gripping the supports, preventing you being thrown out of the bus. And the number of people in the bus ensures that you have to struggle for a space to hold for support. Some unfortunate ones stick their palms to the ceiling of the bus, like lizards.

However, it’s certainly a heaven for food craving people. All roads have footpaths, and every footpath is dotted with street food and general stalls. The food is delicious and the best part that it isn’t costly at all. For the other stalls, you can bargain amazingly to get a 200 rupees commodity in just fifty. And obviously if the shopkeeper is selling it for fifty, he must still have a profit. Just evaluate the margin of profit!

The people here are very helpful (except a T.T.E. at the station who kept talking to an unknown force, all the while looking in the opposite direction). The neighborhood culture is far better than other megacities I have been to, especially Delhi. Of all things, the mentality of the people working here struck me best. Here people have the intentions of working hard and enjoying even harder, and that’s the best thing to do. The colorful city is indeed, the city of joy!

Times are Tough

Mind is the true ruler. The ruler of the body. Whichever great man said that was correct to every word. But sometimes, when the body fails to respond, the brain takes a back seat. Hence, this write-up.

This passing week was a test of patience for me, a god’s test to see what I do in such situations. I got fever. People who know me even half can tell me it is nothing new. I have had more paracetamols than mangoes, visited a doctor more than my relatives and used a thermometer more frequently than a pen. Thanks to my superb memory, a majority the only few remaining memories of my childhood are of sitting in a doctor’s waiting room, with a worried look on my parent’s face (as if I have shown them my report card), and a pathetic look on people looking at me.

I got a paracetamol from my roommate who was ill a day earlier. To my worst surprise, as if to intensify my pleasure in being sick, these words were etched on the tablet: “welcome”. What could you possibly deduce from such a phrase? It’s like ‘please have a seat’ written on the electrocution chair of a prison!

Now from the third day into the heated feverish days, I have a sore throat. Previous glorious experiences remind me of laryngitis. For those fortunately not acquainted with the horrific term, asking what in Madhu Koda’s name is this, it is an illness causing you an amplified sore throat and making your voice less of an audio signal and more of a noise signal. On top of it, it has added benefits.

So I was having a voice like the masked version of batman (when considering clarity), only n times worse. Last time I had the honor of having this disease, I fearfully recall, I used to sit near my laptop with notepad running, and font size 72 selected. The doctor had suggested total voice rest, and I wasn’t able to speak as it is, if I thought otherwise. This had lead to many misunderstandings when I tried to communicate with anyone sans words, further leading to epic frustration.

This coughing problem suddenly increases during the night, for reasons unknown. Thus, I spent (and am spending) sleepless nights, as no one can sleep coughing every 15 seconds. This incessant coughing has brought up another problem of stomach ache. Sleepless nights mean sleepy days. Sleeping during the day causes more sleepless nights.

As I was finding a way out of this vicious cycle, god, idling away his time, again bumped into me. Once again for his entertainment and much to my rebel, he gave me conjunctivitis. The most frustrating disease ever. Swollen, heated, irritated, blood red, dirty, itchy, reduced vision eyes.

Now, I was having fever, suffering from laryngitis and having conjunctivitis. It was like meningitis, elephantiasis, paralysis and hepatitis were on their way. It was in times like this that I revisited the status of god’s existence. More on that later. And in times like this I found out three ways to cure someone from any disease. First, tried and tested: visit a doctor (people staying in KiiT will realize that this option is invalid for them). Second: use your will power to think that you are well and ultimately get well (people with logically capable brains will realize the crap value of this). Third, the best way, is to not pay attention to the disease and act as you would have without it. No, I haven’t gone berserk with all the diseases ramming my body simultaneously, interfering with the rare normal functioning of my pea sized brain.

And who in ‘kaaladhan’s’ name said that: ‘when going gets tough, the tough gets going’. Anything that sounds beautiful isn’t true.  If tough got going, it means that going never got tough.

Really, times are tough!

From greens to grays

Once we were green.

Land, when viewed from the window of a plane gave you a green experience. The human species then used to have gardens with trees and not just few flower pots and grass. People didn't have to watch discovery channel to see what a forest looked like, they just drove off a few miles with their children, who could differentiate between a pet dog and a wild dog with ease. Public gatherings, a source of actual social bonding (unlike Facebook) took place under a huge banyan tree. You could easily spot a tree with the sacred red thread or 'dhaaga' wound on it. Sunlight filtering through the canopy of trees wasn't just a desktop wallpaper then.

Now, we have gone gray.

My younger cousin hasn't seen any snake outside a zoo (it’s not healthy to have a snake in your garden, but still!), or a sparrow sitting on a gulmohar tree, tweeting as the sun pulls up the horizon. He was almost ecstatic when he came to my house, seeing the trees in my garden. He climbed up and down a guava tree innumerous time and kept on saying that I had a superb garden. Next day, he called me saying he told his school friends about his 'adventure', and they were fascinated by it! Imagine a child fascinated just by imagining what climbing a tree would feel like!

 Deforestation has taken a toll on our environment, and, if the current changes appear to be too small to the thick skinned, we will soon feel the heat.

Ok, if there's a need to broaden a road for an ambitious corporate corridor project, or we have to clear an area for mining the most wanted mineral, or have to build a dam to power the dreams of thousands of people, go for cutting trees. But rarely, as it’s quite evident, has there been re-plantation against such massive deforestation.

We cut trees so that we can properly utilize the space for development works. If so, I would like to ask: is there anything that can purify so much air? Give out so much life supporting oxygen? Hold on to the soil so hard? Support life of such variety of animals and birds? Bring about rain so frequently? Cool the environment so effectively? Give out such wide area of restful shadow? And do all of this for so long without the need of any maintenance? If at all there exists a machine than can do all of this in a space even comparable to the little space a tree takes, will it be able to work without any external energy source? If so, then I’ll myself assist, as much possible, to eliminate trees from the surface of earth and replace them by these wonder machines!

Had man been given the power that Mother Nature enjoys, we would not have been alive, or better say, we would never had even evolved from the organisms that walked the earth long ago. Trees (or better say solar power plants) would have been all black, like the color of present age solar panels. What a pathetic view it would be, when one fine morning, you look out of your window to find all your garden trees black, with wires coming out of each leaf and you have a battery instead of the stem!

 Let’s get factual and logical. It isn’t that humans are the best species ever created by nature, nor are we those who have developed the most- we have only developed in a way we consider as development. As I read in one of my science books once, humans aren’t at the pinnacle of the all life forms, they are just one among millions of teeming species on earth.

So if we continue to torture our master, the nature, it won’t be sitting quite for long. It’s like abusing someone who has a gun pointed at you! It won’t take long to wipe out humans from the face of earth, just like we eradicated polio. After all, even the dinosaurs had ruled the earth before they got extinct.

Better, beware!

God? Is He there? Is He good?

As I was typing the article title, MS Word rejected the mere idea of questioning god’s ‘godness’ in its own way. The word ‘god’ followed by a question mark is shown as a grammatical error by this software.

In a middle class Indian family, unquestioned belief in god is generally inbuilt. But as in my case, I come with a programming error. I go to a temple not because of the reasons normal people have, but because I like to see people following an age old magnificent culture.

There’s a temple in Jharkhand, India, that draws huge crowds. This gathering of faith and that unstoppable wish in everyone to touch god’s holy feet makes me shiver when I’m there. Once when I somehow came out of that ultra-dense human concentration camp, my mom asked me, what did you wished for? As I had expected, my answer was followed by an agitated face and a long speech: is this what we travelled such a long distance for? With the answer that I asked god to bring me out of the closed suffocating temple alive, I was having the same question in my mind: is this why I travelled such a long distance, just to enter a room that made me ask for such a wish?

When I share this ‘ungodly’ theory with my friends, there reaction is hazardous to me. It’s okay to me as different people have different opinions. But what I feel is that there nothing such as god. God is a belief one has that there’s someone who will be there when things go south. It’s like having an inverter makes you feel secure that there won’t be a power cut. God’s is a backup for all cases where one loses hope. He is someone who you blame if something wrong happens, so that you won’t feel guilty. He is someone who you thank for achieving something, while keeping the credit to yourself.

Even if it feels like quoting some great personality, I would say the real god is within. Whatever you do, achieve or lose totally depends on what you do. You will always get what you deserve, give or take a few percent for the so called ‘luck’.

Now luck is something that checks how prepared and alert you are for a hostile situation. Take any situation where luck hasn’t or has more than normally favored you. Exempting situations like an asteroid hitting your house, most such ‘unlucky’ experiences make you wiser. Even if a bad event is caused by another person, such as someone causing you trouble for reason’s unknown, you at least get to know how to deal with such a sadist person! Remember, no experience is bad. It depends on what you get from it.

Getting back, if you ask me who is most powerful in the universe including god, I would answer nature. I have seen it, felt it and sensed it with the remaining three sense organs. I haven’t seen god. But I have seen people around the globe, working hard to make this world a better place, from teaching a child how to wash their hands to preventing a third world war.

I once read of a boy who tried to donate bread to an organization seeking funds. The person there told him that the bread would become stale by the time it would reach the needy. This boy sold the bread with the name ‘patriotic bread’ and collected good money. With this money, he bought more bread which he again sold with the same name. This way, at the end of few days, he had collected a large amount of money and donated the whole to this charity organization. Later, with his money and money from people inspired by his act, the crisis was solved.

I can think of him as god. I think of bankers working for the poor as god. I think of scientists finding ways to cure a disease as god. Since god is defined as someone who watches over and selflessly cares for you, I think of my parents as someone above god. Someone said, god couldn’t be everywhere, so he made mothers.

God is in little things. God is in whatever good you do. It isn’t just that god is good; it is that good is god.

Of Monkeys and Parrots…..

Imagine that you are forced to participate in a race and you are told that you ‘must’ finish the race first. Despite all the efforts you put in, you perform much below the great expectations. Now you are humiliated and teased, and down with failure it feels like a nightmare. And it’s a nightmare come true for the students of the Indian education system.
It’s common to see parents pressurizing their wards to excel in their class, not only in studies but also in sports and other extracurricular activities. What they don’t seem to understand is that not everybody is a born politician or singer or scientist or wrestler. Everybody has got their own talent, and forcing them into other fields might kill their original talent.

The worst hit is the students of junior classes. Take this example: students of class 3 are made to (and not meant to) learn multiplication tables till 15. Ask them 2 X 15 and they will answer 30, but 15 X 2 is out of syllabus and its answer is not given in the book! This is the academic environment in which the students grow up!

Parents instigated by the education system push their children towards what they think as a better future, unaware that it might be like being pushed into a ditch! They slam their dreams on the child, irrespective of the dreams the child has. The child, growing up on these ‘great expectations’ and with the despicable education system, gets his dreams and vision suppressed to extinction. This is worse than child labor! They are born to live lives and not to be a medium of fulfilling dreams!

It seems that the education system is more of an institution that converts monkeys into parrots with parents’ consent and on public’s demand. This has to stop before all of them grow up to become mere calculators- all alike, contributing nothing to the development of our country.

I feel that monkeys are better than parrots, aren’t they?