Reflecting on the self

I am sad and angry. Angry at myself because i am feeling sad. Why should the election in some other country which barely matters to my life bother me? Why should it surprise or bother me if a cunning and a fraud wins an election? surely its not the first time i have seen that and i am sure it won’t be the last. Then what is it?

May be its because for me  it reflects a collective failure of human beings. We as people are living in constant fear and we are extremely judgmental. We are afraid that an immigrant will steal our job, take away our livelihood. We believe that, Anyone who does not look like me are ‘outsiders’. Anyone with a different sexual preference than mine are ‘freaks’. Anyone with a different belief are ‘Ignorant’. its always about Us Vs Them.

History tell us that when this fear reaches the peak, there often comes a ‘saviour’ who promises that he would protect Us from Them. The last well know saviour was called Adolf hitler and we all know what happened during his regime. But I digress, coming back to what bothers me about this whole thing. Our fear and insecurities are so big that we refuse  to see whats in front of our eyes. We believe what we want to and not what we are actually seeing. We hear what we like to than what we is being said. We oversee every flaw as long as our need to be protected is met.

This means an extremely sexist and vulgar comments on women would become a locker room banter among boys and not a judge of his character or his view on women. The fact that he is a cheat and not payed his taxes is seen as his ‘brilliance’ and ‘smartness’. The illogical and absurd idea of building a wall between two countries is seen as a ‘Master stroke’ and racist comments made sounds like a ‘warning to outsiders’. This saviour just needs to play on their fear and assure that he is going to protect them. This is enough for them to overlook the fact that he is sexist, racist, bigot and a well known fraud. As long he protects me and my interests, he is a hero- this is the attitude.

This makes me angry,frustrated and sad. But what am i doing about it? Should I be more responsible and do more than rant about it on a blog page? Should I take a more accountable action? Do I have the moral right to criticise if I am not participating actively in a democracy? Is it easier to feel and talk all this in my comfort zone than being involved and fight this?

For now all I have are these questions. I hope to find my answers in these questions itself.

 

The man who didn’t belong

I had a meeting at white field today morning. On my way I thought i would grab my breakfast in one the darshini’s before my scheduled meeting. It was one of those stand and eat kind of a place. So I stood out having my breakfast when I saw an old man standing at a distance and was looking at the hotel and people who are having food. I could sense from his eyes that he was hungry. When our eyes met he, very politely, gestured if I can buy him food. There was so much hesitancy in him to ask me for that. He was dressed in a a dhoti and a normal shirt and had a shawl on him. He looked very much like a person from village but nothing about his manner or clothing suggested that he was a begger. I went in and got him some breakfast and gave him. He stood outside the hotel and started eating. It seemed like there was an invisible boundary that he didn’t want to cross. So I went out and stood next to him and started having breakfast. I finished my breakfast and was about to leave when the old man asked me If i can get some water to drink. I told him to go in and take it and started walking towards my car. As i reached my car I turned to see that the old man was being chased out of the hotel by one of the waiters. I am sure this was done on the instruction of the owner. The waiter’s dialect suggested that he was from a rural part of Karnataka and come to Bangalore in search of work and try to ‘belong’ here. He looked like he could easily have been a relative of the old man, he was young enough to be his son. Before I could go, A stranger intervened and  supported the old man, but the old man seemed very embarrassed. He just took the rest of the breakfast in his hands and went to a tree nearby and ate.

There is so much of judgement, dormant violence, class distinction, boundaries between human beings. The old man was not begging inside the hotel and creating nuisance. Even after I bought him the breakfast, he didn’t seem to have ‘earned’ the rights to belong amongst others. The old man looked like a farmer or a once upon a time  small landlord of what is today a plush IT epicentre of Bangalore. Now he is an outcaste. To add to our long list of divides – Religion, Caste , Class & sexual preferences Now we seemed to have added a few more like Social and economical outcastes. What would happen when these, marginalised in the name of development, section of people revolt? How would a young man in place of that old man would respond in the face of such discrimination? Would he resort to violent behaviour? If he does how would that be treated?

The search within

Every now and then a question keeps popping up in my mind. Is this all? or Is there more in it that I am not seeing?  Be it any situation- happy or not so happy , this question keeps haunting me. Do I externalise this or search within for the answer. I am not even sure if I am looking for an answer or the question for the answer I have found! I am at a very good place in my life right now. My relationships with my wife, parents, friends are great, my professional life is at its best, I am doing more and enjoying more than ever. This is the best phase of my life… Yet there is this one voice that keeps on asking o ‘Is this all? or Is there more? I have decided to seek the answer to this by going deep within me. I believe that If I can go to my absolute core passing through all the layers of my fears & egos may be, just may be I can find out. So my journey to search for answers within me begins….

Boundaries within

As i was sitting in a coffee shop, I noticed a transgender walk inside the door. Instead of their usual business of taking money from the cash counter and blessing them, she just entered the door and stood for a couple of seconds. She looked transfixed. She tried looking around, seemed very awkward. The granduer of the coffee shop, its affluent looking inhabitants seemed very alien to her. Without a word, she quickly left. She stood on the street outside looking admiringly at the coffee shop for a few minutes and she went about her business. Out on the street she didn’t look so out of place and looked comfortable. I was sitting on the first floor of the coffee shop and could see all this without he noticing it.

I remembered an incident in a mall. I was sitting inside a shoe shop. I noticed a family of a husband, wife and their 2 young children standing outside the shop and deliberating if they should enter the shop or not. After a while they just left the place. I noticed that the sales people who normally greets you from the time you reach their door quite cold in their body language. an unseen message was being sent through the body language that that family does not belong inside the shop. Even the security guard seemed quite irritated that the family was watching the shop from outside. His attitude towards them would have been the first hindrance for that family to walk inside the shop.

Social and economical isolation has become such an integral part of our society. There are so many invisible boundaries based on Economical status, caste, sexual preferences etc and yet we are still part of the same ecosystem. This gives rise to a complex relationship that exists in the society which can be easily disturbed by smallest of incident as there is so much pent up anger, frustration from within. Nothing good can come out of this great divide between have’s and have not’s. Its futile to even think of erasing outside boundaries and bring about any change in the world until we erase this inner boundaries that is existing within ourselves. How can we expect the nations to take in refugees and treat them well when we are not even treating the existing people equally.

Women & empowerMENt

 

Women empowerment is being spoken about everywhere today. Even our politicians have suddenly woken up to this and have been using this word quite often in their vote- monger speeches. Of course at least in our country this word ‘ empowerment’ is mostly used only for women. They are actually synonymous.The actual meaning of this word got me thinking. the dictionary meaning says 

em·pow·er

to give power or authority to; authorize, especially by legal or official means:

to enable or permit

Synonyms
1. warrant, commission, license, qualify.

 

If the women are to be ’empowered’ then who is actually enabling/permitting/giving power/authorizing this? of course its men right? I guess like many privileges which we men enjoy, empowering women is also our birth right. We have the power to give the license to them to enjoy their own rights!

 

Empowering women to become literate, have a carer, choose their partner, know their rights etc etc. but honestly this is all their  rights. First we take away all these rights from them and then we empower them of the same.

 

Yesterday me and couple of my friends were talking about a movie that was recently released called ‘Queen’. I personally liked the film. It was quite refreshing to see a film about the journey of a women without a hero actually empowering her through her journey. The film also made me feel a little uneasy. Uneasy because at times,I admit, I could relate the character of the MCP. Not that I have done things like that or thought like him  but I know of people like him and haven’t said anything about it or opposed them. I should have but haven’t. till now.

 

The conditioning of a male child while growing up, the biases and privileges we enjoy for being a ‘Boy’ ensures that we grow up feeling that we are always superior to women. This makes us believe that a women always needs the support of a man, his guidance, his protection to live in this world. Even the best of us suddenly catch ourselves leaning towards this sort of thinking. We actually need to be constantly aware about this attitude and keep making changes in our behavior and thinking throughout our life to undo the damage of our conditioning.

 

While I was talking about this a friend of mine opened up a whole new perspective for me. she said “Empowerment is not about telling women about their rights but understanding that its their rights and nobody is granting it to them. In the name of empowerment lots of things are being forced on them. That too is wrong. If a women decides that she doesn’t want to work but be a home maker does that make her less empowered? on the contrary she is definitely empowered because she is making her own choices. Women making their choices and living their life the way they want that’s true empowerment”.

 

This truly made a powerful impression on me. I realized that this whole women empowerment is being seen from such a myopic male perspective. What we need today is to truly believe that both Men and women are equal partners. Its time for us men to get empowered about this fact. After all its spelled empowerMENt right? 🙂

 

 

The ‘Art’ of absurdity

Today I watched a play, a supposed interpretation of a well known author’s script. The play was a terrible one. It would have been any other bad show and I would have forgotten about it but it’s what happened after the play that got me thinking. After the play, the interested people were asked to stay back for a ‘creative dialogue’ with the Director and actors of the play. The absolutely absurd reasons that were given to justify everything about the play was amazing. In fact every question asked was always met with the popular cliches like artistic interpretation, absurd rendition, creative expression etc. The supposed dialogue was nothing more than just pointless manufactured quotes which came out in the form of anguish or expression of a creative person. Honestly if a lot of this ‘ anger’ ‘ sensitivity’ etc were properly channelised, may be a good production would have come out.

The important thing for me here was the word ‘ Absurdity’. Does absurdity means creating something that no one can understand? If so then why present it to the audience? Many masters have used this form to tell their story but one can actually understand it in the end. It was never just used as a tool to cover up ones lack of ability. If any art form fails to communicate to its audience, then it is a failed one.

Absurd interpretation in art today has become like the fable ‘Emperors new clothes’, everyone behaves as though they understand because they don’t want to be judged as unintelligent. These people actually pressurise others and force their opinions on them. It’s amazing to see what length they would go to defend something they have never understood. The person who uses this form is regarded as intelligent, creative etc, he becomes a messiah of sorts for a lot of wannabes to blindly follow. These followers attack anyone who has a different opinion to theirs. This mob mentality is sickening as well as worrying. The last thing you want is a mob mentality in the art. I would rather be a dumb guy who does not understand art than be a pseudo intellects who seem to understand every absurdity they come across. Using the so called ‘absurd creative expression’ has become a fad and an easy tool in the hands of half baked practitioners who use it without meaning.

This ‘art of absurdity’ should always be used to raise the bar of thinking of the people not to deceive them.

India Vs Bharath

its been a disturbing few weeks since the horrible incident in Delhi. The faceless victim became the catalyst for the people’s pent-up anger to come out in the open. while the mango people of the country mourned, our leaders are busy blaming it on western culture, chowmein, non veg food, dressing etc.Just when we thought that our leaders can’t get any dumber, out comes another theory that the Rape happens only in India and not Bharath!!!

Surprisingly this comment did not anger me because I never expected our leaders to respond in any other way. Time and again they just quote Ramayana and Mahabharata and say what they want to. If valmiki or Veda vyasa were alive they would have slapped these people.

A country that does not make the citizen feel safe is a failed state. People don’t care enough to help another person in distress, the ones who do go to help gets killed. What does one do? Is there even a country called India or Bharath? Or are we just living in is place which is a mirage. Do we even know our country any more? I certainly can’t relate to this.

Escaping thoughts!

” Writer’s block” is a condition, primarily associated with writing as a profession , in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. ”

I have read and heard about this condition from a lot of friends who are writers. I don’t consider myself much of a writer, but i am slightly shocked that even someone as occasional trivial writer like me can also go through this condition. I am trying hard to concentrate and write a piece from past couple of days but the words refuse to flow through. The cursor blinks on my blank document challenging me to fill in words. Its not like my mind is blank or something i have many thoughts but it refuses to flow through my fingers so that i could type it. The thoughts get lost somewhere between my mind and fingers. Where do all these thoughts that excite you so much while its in your brain vanish? It would so awesome if we could figure out a way to access all those lost thoughts. The Paradox here is I am actually writing something on my ‘inability’ to write. May be thoughts have minds of their own, they exercise their free will to appear and disappear whenever they want. Meanwhile the epic battle between me and the cursor on my computer screen continues…

Truth and Honesty

Truth.Honesty.

I have heard these words right from the time i learned to comprehend language.But the meaning of these two words have constantly changed at different times of my life.More so since I started to involve and indulge myself in the creative field. I always want my work to have an inner truth and have an honest approach towards that work. This is much easier said than done. The meaning of these words changes so much that i often get confused. A lot of times I believe that i am being unbiased and being truthful to some work, while working on it somewhere i realize that I am ‘Justifying’ my truth so that I can finish the work at hand rather than search for the absolute truth of the subject. My changes that happen in my daily life is changing the meaning of truth & honesty. My needs actually dictates my mind to believe the truth that gets me rewards and block the actual truth of the matter. Likewise Honesty always gets mistaken with hard work. Sure a lot of times i have worked really hard at something that I very well know is mediocre. Does that make my work Honest? or Is it dishonesty that i knowing very well that I am part of a mediocre stuff and get into it?

How do one distinguish when they are being truthful and when they are in the state of ‘Justified truth’. On many occasions in my life I catch myself guilty of being part of the project that gives me Money and gratifications as opposed to what really satisfies me. My needs are also very important for me to have a decent satisfying social life. To satisfy the needs of the life I often adopt the justified truth because it makes the process bearable and gives me drive to complete that job. So it is not exactly a bad thing since this state of justified truth is helping me to make my ends meet. But deep inside the feeling of betraying the actual truth is ever present. How do one balance this? How to overcome this feeling? Is blocking the actual truth the answer? May be these two words whose meaning kept on changing throughout my life so far will actually reveals the true meaning one day.

Satyam. CWG. 2G. Lokpal Bill. Baba Ramdev..

I am sure there were a lot more i missed from the list of recent scams to hit the headlines and then die down in our country. Actually it almost has a beautiful flow one scam taking away attention from the other. It is like musical notes replacing each other of course minus the melody or nicety. Its like a well composed orchestra  with our PM at the helm as the conductor. Each time there is a public outcry about a scam, a newer bigger scam hits the country and we forget about the previous scam. And this happens way too many times to call it a ‘coincidence’. We have forgotten completely about Ramlinga Raju and Kalmadi, now the men of the hour are Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare.

Politicians  and leaders really know how to take advantage of our short term memories. Lets face it they have got our numbers . They know that joy of winning the world cup in cricket will make us forget the pains of losing our hard earned tax money through 2G and CWGs. Why else would Anna Hazare wait choose the time after world cup finals and before the begining of IPL as the ideal time to ‘awaken people about corruption’.Our poor fakir, with an own private island in Fiji and a private jet, decides that it is the right time to fight against corruption.

Amidst all these my mind ponders about the possible conspiracy theories. I am of a firm belief that all of these things have a central theme, humongous amounts of money. i always wonder about these things.

• why is there a fuel price increase whenever a huge scam breaks? are scams a mere decoy for diverting public attention?
• Was it a deliberate move to let out 2G scam to check the growing power of DMK? That explains Mrs sonia Gandhi’s congratulatory call to amma after TN election results.

While aam junta like us  are thinking about these things, somewhere in our vast country another scam is waiting to erupt to erase the memory of Lokpal Bill.