Current Affairs

Children are singing and dancing on “Munni badnam hui” and “Shiela ki jawani” just because they don’t have any choice. Nobody makes movies and songs for them and also don’t feel any social obligation towards them. I have to make a real conscious effort to find suitable songs for my daughter Suhani. However in practice, most of the parents may not have the understanding or time. Consequently, adult and filthy entertainment (sex and violence) keeps on going in front of small kids. As parents are also so busy in their life and also children don’t have many similar aged kids to play with, keeping children in front of TV looks like a big shortcut which in the end may not work that well for kids.

In bollywood, it has become fashionable of sort to use explicit abuses and scenes. Almost all songs are loud dance songs. Soothing. peaceful or sad songs have disappeared. Even actresses are also singing “character dheela”. Ram Gopal Varma uses explicit abuses on twitter. He makes a movie based on Neeraj Grover murder case which is one of the goriest murder stories in last few years. The murder accused Maria goes free and receives a movie offer by RGV and also a proposal to appear in next “Big Boss”. It’s quite surprising that for some girls, the ideal is Rakhi Sawant to gain the quick fame. Dolly Bindra brings very loud, abusive attitude in Big Boss and becomes a celebrity and charges hefty fee to appear in TV serials. So fame and quick money corresponds to how loud, violent and vulgar you are. Times of India as a newspaper had top 10 smooches of 2010 yesterday and today it had top 10 lovemaking scenes in this year.

People have lost the sensitivity Indians were known for. One of my colleagues dies in a car accident and surprisingly workplace looks exactly same next week. If you dont drink you will feel coming from just another world . Drinking among Indian girls is “hap” thing today. Almost all TV serials are based on the domestic violence and infidelity. Comedy serials are just filthy vulgar and double-meaning satires in which only judges laugh.

TV news is just focused on sensational stories. The same news which was of 20 min duration, 20 years ago has got elongated to 24 hours because of all these news channels. News is replaced with bollywood gossips and TV reality serials.

One lady is repeatedly raped just a KM away from my residence in DDA Sports complex. Many girls have been gang-raped by auto-drivers or abducted straight from open roads. Inflation has made such in-roads that things have become just doubly costly and a common man can just see it happening. Depression has become very common among city dwellers where social contact has become rarity.

Earlier people used to think why a relative came to their house as it was quite regular affair. Now people beg those same relatives to visit them as they feel all alone in this big city. So at the expense of such an economic boom the question is – where are we going?

Me: new year is every day!

Me: reply to your profile message (Why are we celebrating new year??… Because one more year over from our life? Isnt it time to look back and see where you are?) 😛

Srini: then y u r celebrating this particular day?

Me: people love celebrations…thats the only cause

Srini: celebration shud be when u earned something – materialistic or non… but u wont njoy such celbs

Me: u dont need a reason for celebrations

Srini: celebration with a cause is gud

Me: why shouldnt one find and get oppurtunity to be happy …there need not to be any reasons…isnt it?
India is a country where u find too many occations for celebrations and most of them are just because of our culture 😉

Srini: a real happiness comes after an achievement

Me: In the world of so many disappointments, pains and worries, people have good reasons to not have any reason for celebrations. For instance if I distribute sweet, I don’t need to have any reasons whatsoever. Sometimes you do that too

This post was written immediately after Delhi Bomb blasts which happened on Sep 13, 2008. Whatever I have written below was an instantaneous reaction. I hope it still makes sense.

Bomb blasts shatter the human psyche. Recent Delhi blasts shattered mine also. People feel so helpless when it happens in their own city. What kind of security we are talking about? Terrorists challenge the Indian government by saying, “Stop us if you can”. And they keep on targeting one city after another.

A typical stereotyped statement comes from Prime Minister to maintain peace and harmony. What’s the meaning of peace/patience after-all? Keeping the mouth shut and doing nothing. Human life has become so cheap and people have become so insensitive that losing 21 lives may be just another headline for a week. After a few more days, another spicy news comes and old details of human-life loss lose the charm. However that loss is ingrained in the psyche of affected relatives for their rest of life. Life moves on and it seems that losing some people doesn’t make much difference in a country of billion people.

Somehow we don’t have a system in which culprits are punished as soon as crime happens. People live a life where they are so vulnerable that if something happens to them, there will be nobody to help them out. If you have influence and power, it’s easy to murder people and stay free as everybody knows very few people have the courage to fight court-cases for rest of their lives. Even if they could, they have minuscule chances to win because of many reasons. So in current context, terrorists know very well that they are fighting against a impotent system and they are using it to their full advantage.

In a sense, bomb blasts came at a right time for these politicians as people will again forget the gravity of Bihar flood situation. Millions of people are in danger and nobody knows how they are going to live their rest of life.

Somehow you may think that I have become a little too sentimental which leads me to think system should not be based on just pure sentiments as generally we Indians become. The system should be impartial and should not be biased because of religion/cast/power or creed. More than 2500 lives got lost in Gujrat in a pre-planned attempt of genocide. One of the most so called respectable prime-minister of India did nothing. Even after all these 6 years or more, in the name of justice we have nothing. The biggest irony of the country is – the same criminal politicians get elected again and again. Instead of booking the culprits of Godhra carnage, the chief-minister delivers the vengeance calls and another 2500 people are killed senselessly. I was shocked to hear the Bajrang Dal top leader describing graphic details on how he killed pregnent woman, her child and other members of the community. It was recorded as a video and shown to the whole world, how a group planned total genocide of a community in Ahemdabad. Even after that the government did nothing. It was said that those details will be used in the legal case, but what legal case are we talking about. Have we become so insensitive that killing in cold blood doesn’t make a difference for our political/judicial system? These legal activities are going to take another 10 years. Another example of “justice denied” case.

When a sizeable population of this country starts losing the faith on the system. Foe people who have lost lives of their relatives in these carnages, it’s easy to go towards extremist ways. And I guess that’s what is happening right now.

All I am trying to say – we need a system which is impartial to everyone. A system which could show fear of law. A system where a criminal is rest assured that he will be booked and punished in a timely fashion. A society where top politicians don’t put the responsibility of the crime on citizens themselves and instead work hard to make city safe for everybody.

It might look very familiar to you when in a group of Indians, people start talking about the problems India has. Comparing India with western countries and coming out with all the problems we have. Surprisingly it has become a big gossip topic and I get amused and bored whenever I find it.

Sometimes I think they really don’t realize what we actually have. Think about it. Satyajit Ray gets his due credit in India after he receives an Oscar award. Similarly from the time “Yog” became “Yoga”, we began to realize its value. And why do we want to call our cinema as Bollywood instead of just Indian cinema like any other world cinema (french, italian, chinese etc)?

People talk about problems and chaos and say, may be they will not be able to perform in best possible way because of sheer amount of problems we have compared to western world. Recently we invited the founders of “Lean Software Development” in NCR and got an opportunity to talk with them. Similar question came into picture that in a system of chaos and so many problems we have in India, can we really perform the way western companies do. The answer she gave was satisfying and reinforced my thinking. She said, solutions and big economic drive comes in an area of chaos only. Countries which are satisfied with themselves and are already developed and have a good system will not be able to do that. USA in 19th century was a similar case. It used to be known for its complete lawlessness and absolutely no system. That time became the playground of so many initiatives and ideas and we see USA as the country we know now.

Sometimes I feel people don’t know/underestimate their roots and are endlessly following their western dreams. It’s a fashionable statement or a status symbol when a child talks about reading Harry Potter books. Similarly talking about Hollywood movies and English songs is also taken in similar fashion. However I get surprised when these children have no idea about our own heroes, cultures and mythology. No idea about Ramayana, Mahabharata and our value system etc.

Sometimes back, my polish friend told that he found some Indians so westernized that even his compatriot western people are not. I was amused to hear that. When we talk with western people, we talk about things which that person may be knowing already or is already comfortable with. Recently our company gifted bottles of wine as gift to our western guest even though we know Indian culture doesn’t encourage alcohol and I think there could be better Indian gifts instead.

I felt the value of being Indian when I stayed for sometime in USA and talked to many people there. I felt so confident and comfortable in being myself that I think that was a kind of rebirth for me. I had so much to share and had so many different perspectives which those people never had and never thought of.

Before going there, I used to feel a bit of inferiority complex compared to my so called “westernized” friends. In US and Netherlands I could open up many communication channel and reaffirmed it again and again that we Indians have so much in ourselves that people in India don’t understand or recognize it. We have our share of problems but tell me which country doesn’t have them.

We talk about the chaos Indian system has but let’s compare it with those countries. US has 6 times bigger space than India and 1/6th of its population. So in total a person in US has 36 times bigger spaces and resources to use compared to her Indian counterpart. You put the same ratio of people in States and you’ll find a similar chaos there also.

I feel we should not leave some of the best things our cultural heritage provides us. From the very beginning, we are open to the new ideas, so much so that none of the western world has done so in their own history. So we should take forward the part of our heritage, values and culture and try to improve on the part we have problems. But following western values without any proper thought will not work in long run. It will create a rootlessness which I can already see in our younger generation.

For a long time, I had a desire to watch a Hrishikesh Mukherjee movie “Satyakam”. I am a diehard fan of Mukherjee cinema as somehow it presents a world on celluloid which I would like to part with. Where else do you get that light cinema, persisting on your values effortlessly. “Satyakam” is supposed to be the best performance from Dharmendra and Hrishikesh Mukherjee also places this movie very high. You can take a look on following clip to get an idea about the movie.

The story forced me to think about many questions for which I don’t have straightforward answers.

Don’t you think in today’s era, it may be suicidical to think and work for truth? As protagonist of the movie says, compromise is another name of taking bribes, corruption and issues in the system.

After independence, lots of young people believed in values, honesty and revolution. It may look like yet another story in today’s day but there were people who left their home to change the system, help out the poor of the country and stayed in the remote areas even if they could take advantage of their credentials. My own father participated in Bhoodan Movement led by Vinoba Bhave when he was just 18. He left home and participated in getting the land donated from big landowners in order to give it to landless people. He participated in creating villages and stayed in a remote area with a very low stipend. He gave priceless 18 years of his youth to that movement selflessly. In turn he didn’t take any land for himself or his family. In today’s day it may be called foolishness for not doing something for his own sake but in those days, there were some young people after independence who wanted to participate in nation building.

We became independent in 1947 but we became slaves of our own people again. Even after getting independence, corruption, poverty, unemployment were rampant and for people like Satyakam it was difficult to differentiate between compromise and right thing to be done for the nation.

Sometimes I think how could people give their entire life for a cause. Sometimes I think how come Bhagat Singh (23 years old when he was hanged) could think about such a cause which could cost his own life. Similarly sometimes I also think how a person could remain so attached to a person who because of his/her illness, cannot be called a live person practically.

So what’s right and what’s wrong, sometimes become very challenging question to me. Sometimes back a girl asked me a difficult question. She said she is in love with a person for quite sometime. Recently she came to know that the person has a brain-tumor. It poses a big question about her future etc. I just gave her my own view. I think it all depends on the kind of attachment you have with that person. Sometimes attachment is so strong that you may not think or haven’t thought anything without a person ever. That person may be your life. So when emotions are so strong and also you know what you are doing, people take difficult decisions too. In Mili movie, the character played by Amitabh marries the character played by Jaya Bachchan. Similarly Kishore Kumar married Madhu Bala even though he knew she would die with a heart disease soon. On the other hand, if the person is not so attached with that guy/girl, that person should definitely take practical stance and see things from practical aspects. Again there is no definition of right and wrong. If you see it carefully, both are correct if you take both perspectives. But sometimes similar kind of questions are not that easy.