Subversion of the mind

The day I was born, I was kept in a conditioned room because that was the standing instruction. As I grew up I was sent to a place where my mind was force-channeled to a prescribed path set by some unknown person who was being called the Author. I personally don’t know Mr. Author, but he would be my saviour throughout. He saved me from flunking in exams, from getting scolding from teachers, from embarrassments in front of fellow mates and pretty girls in my class, from facing the wrath of my parents, etc. But it was always temporal; I still felt fear creeping behind me, engulfing me in darkness. Yet a sound kept pronouncing to follow the Author religiously if I wish to see daylight. And so it continued; I abided by every rule deemed important by the Author, for he said that was the path to eternal sunshine. The day did come when my path blazed in silvery bright. The Author came in a unicorn and took me to another place along the same path. They tested me on various occasions: 8 to be precise, but I had the ever trusted Author by my side. This stretch was fairly simple. The drills were the same; the instructions from the Author - the same; fears none. The Author has imparted enough confidence in me to face the bright light for eternity. All I had to do was to follow the set rules – everything will eventually fall in place.  

Everything did eventually fall in place. Upon hearing the voice of my confidence, eternal sunshine sent for me. It was my time: time to reap the benefit of years of diligent work under the Author. But as I turned back to look for him, he vanished in the rays by then. Copping the loss, I braced myself. As the sunshine dictated terms to follow I started searching for rules to follow; there were none. It said that I hold the power to make or break a rule; that I should bend its rays to draw power. I didn’t learn to bend a ray, then comes using it to draw power. I asked for a manual, but I was given a goal list. When I asked how, it asked me to look inside to get the answer outside of the box. I searched outside and questioned inside; I searched for the Author and wandered inside. Shattered and battered I realized I was taken for a ride by the Author. 

The Indian dream - in 2D

As I reached an age where I got exposed to some well written articles, I started coming across the term ‘the Indian dream’. It was intriguing, because I never really thought it was possible for a billion people to have the same dream. But we once had: a dream to be a free country; or so they told us to believe. 64 years hence, do we still have a common dream? Is there a common thread that binds every one of us into one entity – Indian?

When I sat for my job interview, I was asked a simple question: ‘what are your short term and long term goals?’ In short they wanted to know what my dream is. The only dream I get often is where I save a damsel in distress. Another dream that teases me to reach the Meta state is when I stop a running train with just my index finger. Yes I dream of being a superhero a lot of times. We all want to be a superhero and what he stands for. We think ourselves as the purest part of the society surrounded by hooligans, questioning & comforting ourselves that we don’t deserve this situation. This dream, this vision is what we see in our movies as well: good fighting to win over the evil. Even when we make a movie about goondas & rowdies we try to justify their act of hooliganism, so that there is a good vs. evil fight at the end. We attach a purpose, a motive that makes a person right; no matter how bad an act he does, so that we can see us in him. When he eventually conquers his nemesis it’s our victory: a victory that we perceive will make everything right. On the contrary, when a movie doesn’t give a clear demarcation, it is termed as ‘loosely written’, ‘everything is left hanging’. This ability to see everything as B&W is the Indian dream I think: to plot everything in the 2D plane like the ‘good, bad’, ‘right wrong’ ‘for, against’, etc.

Take any issue of national importance; it has always been dealt with by the people in a ‘either this or that’ manner. You can either support someone or be against him. You can’t say something outside of the answer choices. I would call this impatience and a lack of perseverance. It took us 12 years of primary education to easily study a UG programme. Would we have been able to do it as a kid? When we all know there needs to be a lot of foundation & ground work required, why are we adamant in demanding results immediately? Some justify this impatience to the lack of development even after 64yrs of foundation. My question is; did we actually make a proper foundation? One government comes to make a scheme; the next government scraps it and makes a new one, which eventually gets scraped. Do we really have a defined path set for the future of our country? Instead of asking for a Shankar films like massive makeover in a matter of minutes, has anyone stopped and thought about a longer/permanent solution that will be able to adapt to the scenario of tomorrow? No, we are busy classifying the world as black and ourselves as white. But are we? A so called ‘farmer’ hates paying tax & so does everyone involved in the agricultural industry. They don’t even pay electricity bill. They say we are doing a service; why should we give our money to the government. If that is true, then why should the government relieve them of all their loans when there is drought? Go down south, to the interiors of Tamil nadu; Deer hunting is still practiced by the people there. Come to the cities; the working class goes all out to cut short a long procedure in any system. Even for rules related to safety issues, people pay bribe to avoid case being filed. From using helmets to emission control norms we don’t obey any rules. Little are we conscientious that a punishment is to make someone follow a rule. If, we don’t fear a punishment ourselves, how will a new legislation against corruption be enough to stop the corrupt? But we don’t care. We have made a great rule so we will remain complacent that everything will be fine here on. The great Indian dream fills our mind again. What does it take to make us push the envelope? What does it take to make us search for better avenues to curb such incidents? Didn’t we learn that prevention is better than cure? If we feel we are better educated than all the nethas put together, why are we following the same path as them to control injustice? Does a mother kill a child when it makes a mistake? By arresting someone for being corrupt is going to give you all the money that was swindled? Do you think 1.7 lakh crore money will come back to the government? Again we are making a precedent that we are interested in getting rid of the bad from our sight and nothing more than that.

I am not saying Lokpal is a bad law; I am not qualified enough to judge it. But my common sense tells me it is only going to satisfy the hunter in us – the Indian dream to win over the evil. We all know what happened to Sita after Rama killed Ravana. Lokpal may as well be the switch that cuts off the power to the corrupt; but little do we realise that the wire connecting the switch for empowering the citizen is obsolete. I want the wires to be laid first and then work on the switches, but the team Anna and the majority of people in metros want to take the opposite path. Either way, let there be light!

Samacheer Kalvi - Samachaara Kalvi

From the day we are born our growth has always been measured by how much we question our surrounding. True education happens as we acquire knowledge through reasoning. It is this principle that our ancestors had tried to impart as education – the power to reason or should we call it nirvana? In twenty first century as we are nearing the dream year 2020, education still remains a hindrance for knowledge. Yes, eighteen years of education has given me nothing more than what I have learnt about this world in the past two years as an engineer. Every professional I see, is now where he is only because of his understanding of this world. It is that driving force that had led him to acquire required knowledge. The irony being that, his sense of understanding has nothing to do with the education provided. Clearly one can see the real state of primary & secondary education in this country where people who really seek knowledge has no guidance. The whole system, from poor teachers to senile books fails to awaken the thinking power of the country’s posterity. If I feel I have got some amount of reasoning I would attribute it to my milieu. But are all blessed like the few of us? Can everyone afford to search for answers outside of the B&W words that lay in front of them?

Adding to this crisis are the numerous curriculum provided for different set of people. Indirectly it means people who are blessed with brighter parents are eligible to get the best out of the system while the self-made children remain underprivileged. It brings out a sense of demarcation amongst the younger generation even before they are ready to face the real world. What we really need is a drastic uplift for the below par curriculum. But, what rather comes out as requirement is a common system which sacrifices the higher points to accommodate the lower bracket.

Samacheer Kalvi the latest attempt to equalize the biased society in the near future seems to be nothing more than a powerful tool to degrade the society by eradicating the flowers even before their buds are formed. When, I a student of 90s, felt we were outdated in what we received in the name of education, what is the use of flushing out quality load for the present kids in the name of equality. It is synonymous to pushing the society back by a decade where we were still professing our hatred for hindi. Personally hindi hasn’t helped me in gaining knowledge, but every time I go out of this state it is that language that makes my journey smooth in the align land. In this sense, language and education should be treated as one and the same; a path for opening the mind for understanding what is available and what is to be made available. Like my current company’s slogan  – ‘it sets you thinking’, education must act as a fuel to the natural spark every human being has inside him. Not stopping there, it should also teach him how to preserve and transform the spark into forms which he would like to envisage in the future.

Coming back to Samacheer Kalvi, let us accept that the syllabus is on par with the matric standard if not higher. Even if that is true, will it be enough? Isn’t education all about tuning the mind, and not just mugging information? A boy playing a team sport will learn a lot more about society than he will learn about it in his book. A successful team captain will know more ways to make a person be his efficient self than a HR person. I am not saying books are obsolete for the current trend, all I am saying is, the way we see books is completely wrong. The change has to happen with the way teachers teach us and not just the books. Instead of spending crores and cores of people’s money on making copies of different syllabus to satiate each government’s ego, why not spend them on improving the quality of teaching? Will a piece of paper with some great words change the future of those kids? The need of the hour is a qualified interpreter between them and the books, till they can take care of themselves.

Royal Kiss of New Imperialism

The Queen of England started it, if history books are accurate. Barging into any state/country/province (what ever you call it back then) she took control of the land & I bet Charles Darwin would have never in his wildest dream thought his one statement could stand good for the power she exerted.

New Imperialism sure has impacted India in many ways than we might believe. We have a leader in this state, who in his exile, went to a temple town to eventually rule the roasters. The power he exhibited during his son’s marriage can be drawn parallel to the royal wedding if I exclude all the white collar hooliganism. While the former uses money that was eaten from the pockets of citizens allover the world, the latter has just a state to itself. The Darwin theory spreads its presence here too. No wonder the royal kiss or the big fat wedding creates more hoopla than a CM went missing.  

When we thought the Queen has called it a day, raises another leader, who feels ‘US is All of the world’. If he can enter a terrorist nation and call for ‘line of fire’ just near their military academy to capture a notorious terrorist, who was funded by his predecessors, he sure brings new meaning to imperialism. Amidst this massacre in the name of religion & democracy, another democrat stands smiling at one billion people while his ministers laugh all the way to banks. If Manmohan singh thinks he is being altruistic, sorry sir - with great respect for your talent & disregard for your leadership.

Government apart there are organizations that wants to exhibit its stamp of authority. Democracy doesn’t means someone can cease the functioning of an entire transport system or for that matter threaten the government to pass a bill. Hope we as citizen develop maturity in how we handle our crisis. At this stage we, the nation & the whole world needs policies that will include the near future into its scheme of things, rather than appeasing the immediate present for material or power gains. 

Better than the worst - whom do i vote?

DMK’s campaign:-

Candidate: please vote for us.

Common man: why?

Candidate: we have done a lot of good deeds. Kalaignar’s rule is the golden period for tn.

Common man: oh really? Can you elucidate?

Candidate: We built the new secretariat.

Common man: what am I going to do there?

Candidate: we have made rice price rs.1

Common man: it’s above rs.40 in normal shops.

Candidate: we gave rs.2000 per family as flood relief fund.

Common man: when we went to collect, they said we have already received it. The same happened for every family in this area.

Candidate: We have developed a lot of fly-overs in this city.

Common man: what happened to west-mambalam fly-over? Expect aiding your cm to come safely to kalaignar tv office does the new kodambakkam fly-over serve any other purpose?

Candidate: we have kept our promise of giving free tv.

Common man: this whole area didn’t get it.

Candidate: please vote for us.

Common man: why?

Candidate: if you don’t, we will vote for you!

AIADMK’s campaign

Candidate: please vote for us.

Common man: why?

Candidate: because the ruling party is corrupt.

Common man: yah. But why should I vote for you?

Candidate: So that when we come to power we will arrest them.

Common man: anything else?

Candidate: we will give free laptops and all electronic equipments for your family.

Common man: the ruling party said they will give that too.

Candidate: please vote for us.

Common man: why?

Candidate: please vote for us. Thank you.

This is how the election campaign ended few hours back in tamil nadu. The most rampant political system in India has finally found its ahimsa weapon. Violence or emotional blackmail/manipulation are done away with and the new weapon is freebees. The ruling party started with a song lauding about the home people are going to get after Karunanidhi becomes CM. Not stopping there, they targeted the educated illiterates with a whole lot of electronic gadgets. Whilst the ruling party gave a power punch in the first round the opposition did a poor PR job in their retaliation. Everyone in this state knows 2G scam >>>>>>>>>>~~~>>>> TANSI case and yet the opposition lacked the smartness to capitalize on it. In the next round though the opposition did a good thing by roping in Vijayakanth. Theoretically that’s a great move alright. But the ruling party brought in Vadivelu & he reached out to the target audience like no other leader did. He became the ambassador for the party whilst Vijayakanth gave his famous movie kicks to his followers. Round two went in favour of the ruling party again. The opposition then brought in Vijay. But he was nowhere to be seen in the crucial stage. The ruling party swiftly brought Chiranjeevi to attract the telugu speaking population (2^nd most spoken language in this state – excluding english off course). They even brought in Rahul Gandhi – the openly accepting Karunanidhi hater. The true politician he is he spoke 'at 87 Karunanidhi is the fittest'. Ironically when he campaigned in Kerala his agenda was to drive away the older generation! Round three, four, five all went the ruling party way. Amidst all this heat the opposition party leader sat inside an AC booth to canvass, while the thalapathy of the ruling party armed with 'munnal munnal vada song in A.R.Rahman's voice' mingled with the people. That was the final punch for you!

As a common man whom do I vote to tolerate? A well organized crime organization whose business & administrative methods is in a league of their own or a short-tempered & at times good intended leader whose party is in the verge of breaking up?