Standing up for all the wrong things…

Sitting lazily on a Friday afternoon in office, it is not surprising that your mind wanders, and that too much faster than your watch. Today, I was immersed in thinking of what all values I was taught when I was a kid, what all I used to love and feel passionate about, and what among those would I teach my child.

As I have covered my views on religion in my previous blogs, I am not going to drag that over here again. At least till my child reaches an age where he can think independently, he/she will be brought up as an atheist, or at least an agnostic. I would like him/her to know and understand that life is not fair, rather than polluting his thoughts with “everything happens for good”, and that there is someone with a remote “up there” controlling your life. I would probably teach him/her that truth will hurt, and suck, but it will never make you regret in life.

There was a time when I was passionate about being an Indian, probably even for being a Keralite. I would keep on bragging whenever possible about all these. But, then someday you realize that you being born or brought up in a place, has nothing to do with you, and that it is not something that you deserved or earned. Now, when I think of it, I find it completely wrong and shallow when a person talks so. Patriotism is only a false emotion, triggered in you by your surroundings, to infuse a difference, to make you think that you are better off/worse than people living in some other geographic location. Even our history text books do not help us here, other than portraying some as heroes, and the rest as zeroes!

I loved the Indian cricket team, and probably more than that, I hated the Pakistan team. In between, somewhere, I realized that Afridi and co. are not responsible for the Partition of India, the Kargil War, or the 26^th November attacks. I realized that Gary Kirsten and co. did not treat native Africans as slaves. I comprehended the fact that Vaughan and co. did not enforce divide and rule in India. I am sad that I had to learn it the difficult way, and it was too late. 

By the time I started realizing all this, I seem to be beyond change. Now when I consciously try to root for a team like Pakistan (who need a win to boost their economy, to make other countries play in Pakistan), I see that I just cannot do that. For sure, I do not hate Pakistan now, but when it comes to Pakistan vs India, I always side with India. I hope time can make me mature enough or at least old enough to forget all the hatred instilled in me, so that I can plainly think of everyone as humans, even if they are portrayed as Pakistanis or Africans or Americans.

Being patriotic, even if in the most righteous sense of the word, creates differences. I think only people who sacrifice their life for the country can be called patriotic, and no one else. I hope for the day when governments across the world will think of armies as a dispensable unit, and patriotism as evil.

Now, when I think of it, being a human itself has nothing to be proud of. In fact, I think they are the sickest possible animal that one can ever be. We think ourselves as the most intelligent species that inhabited earth. It is an irony that we have medicines for the deadliest diseases, but yet many starve to death. When we think that we live in an “advanced technological” world, somewhere else, people commit suicide because they fail to feed their young ones. It is a surprise that people living in some air conditioned room can order a war to kill helpless millions. It intrigues me that we continue to make nuclear weapons powerful enough to wipe out our fellow beings. At least, the law of jungle is to kill for food! We, humans, are the most insecure beings ever to have surfaced the earth, that we have reached a stage where we get satisfied and happy, only when we see others’ miseries.

My wife often tells me that I am highly optimistic. For once, I hope my optimism pays off, so that I can tell my child something other than “You are born as the sickest animal, the world is going to be annihilated soon, and you should neither have faith nor be passionate about anything!”

and then you realize you are in IT industry!!!

What you do: 

1)      Usually, you come at time for your work, and leave at the right time.

2)      Whenever there is extra work, you stay back a little, complete the work and go back.

3)      If required, you work on weekends.

4)      If you make mistakes, acknowledge it, and correct it.

5)      You do your work properly, with good quality, and keep up with your schedule.

6)      You come up with solutions for difficult issues, in a very short time.

7)      Even if the assigned work is junk, you do it without any complaints.

8)      You do not poke your nose in others’ work, and others’ business.

9)      You do not care what others think of you, do not involve in unnecessary discussions, and small talks.

10)   You laugh only if you like the joke, and talk in the meeting, only if you feel that something is there to be shared with the team.

11)   You interact with the colleagues for getting work done.

12)   You don’t talk to anyone for the sake of talking or because you and that person are alone in the lift.

Result: 

1)      Dogs are treated better than you are.

2)      You lose all your respect, and your dignity.

3)      You end the year with the worst rating, and the least salary hike.

What you do: 

1)      You come really late, and stay back late as well.Many just notice the time you leave.

2)       If required, you work on weekends.

3)      If you make mistakes, argue that it is not a mistake, and then if no other go, blame it on the next person.

4)      You keep up with your schedule, but your work is of poor quality.

5)      You do not come up with solutions for trivial issues, leave alone the difficult ones.

6)      You do only junk work.

7)      You poke in every other person’s work and you lose your sleep because of your insecurity.

8)      You think about what others think of you, involve in unnecessary discussions, and small talks.

9)      You laugh if your lead or senior is cracking the worst possible joke ever!

10)   You interact with the colleagues for each and everything, making them think that you both are invaluable and can’t live without one another.

11)   You talk just for the sake of talking, and not because you want to talk.

Result:

1)      You are treated like a king/queen.

2)      You maintain your dignity, as you do not have one.

3)      You end the year with the best rating and hike.

 

Rashomon...

You just need to watch Rashomon to understand why Akira Kurosawa is considered one of the finest directors in world cinema. For most of the viewers, it is an unsolved crime told in an interesting yet different fashion, and he/she can try to arrange the puzzles to form a solution. For movie freaks, it is much more than that; in addition to being a fine work of art, it conveys beautifully a simple message through a complex movie.

One can easily gather from the movie, that the main idea conveyed was that there is no absolute truth. We see 4 different people narrating a story, in completely different ways. While each of them tells their version of the story, the idea expressed is simply how much one’s perspective can distort reality. Or in the deeper sense, that there is no absolute reality. Reality is relative. We could relate it to the story of the blind men and an elephant, where 6 different blind men touch different parts of an elephant and each of them assume, interpret and argue that elephant looks like the part they touched.

Now, probably to what was mainly conveyed through the movie - the rationale behind the different stories. None of them were lying to protect themselves, as one can notice from the bandit’s and the lady’s story, they say they might have killed the samurai. Obviously, protection from law is not what mattered. In the bandit’s story, he glorified himself; he portrayed himself as a brave and a great warrior, who easily lures the lady. In the lady’s story, she portrayed herself as a helpless victim, trying to stand in dignity. In the samurai’s version, he was portrayed as being noble, brave, and the best thing he could do was committing suicide. In the woodcutter’s version, he is portraying each of the 3 characters equally culpable, which makes his act of stealing the dagger a trivial one. Even though, we tend to go with the woodcutter’s story because he is a neutral person, we cannot believe his as well, as he was the only person who admitted that he was lying (earlier).

In each of the version, we see that the person is glorifying themselves. It is not protection from law that mattered, but protecting one’s own ego. In every one’s story, we see the story-teller polishing his character so as to suit his ego. It portrays the insecurity in humans, the fact that no humans can survive without lying to themselves and creating a make-belief world where they seem to be a better person than they actually are. A simple message that no human is completely honest with himself!

All said, probably, the movie also conveys the message that no man is truly evil. One of the important character in the movie, the priest, keeps on saying about his faith in mankind, and in the climax, we see that it is restored. Probably, a subtle message that being a liar or a thief is not the lone way to judge one's character is also included.

Other than the message conveyed in the movie, the way in which the movie unfolds, the way the characters are molded, the way the 3 characters differ in the different versions, the acting, the sensuality of the woman, all plays a great role in shaping the movie into a masterpiece. For instance, the initial scene in which the woodcutter walks through the forest till he finds the dead body is breathtaking. We walk with him, and when he stands still seeing the body, we also freeze. Even such a trivial scene, shot with amazing beauty and intelligence, is what makes Kurosawa one among the best!

Usually, when a movie ends without a climax, or when no solutions are provided to the crime, I end up a bit frustrated (exception being Nolan’s inception). Have to admit though, this one left me fascinated!

Interpreting RuN LoLa rUn..

I prefer to call a movie intelligent, if it keeps us glued till its end, as well as if it keeps us thinking after. With a running time of just over 75 minutes, Run Lola Run accomplishes exactly that! I will not go into the plot here, rather try to point out what I interpreted from the movie.

You meet people in your life, whose life you have no influence on. You rarely matter in their life, and what happens to them is not at all related to your interaction with them. This is portrayed by at least 2 characters Lola meets in the movie, the lady with the baby, and the cyclist. In each of the 3 run’s, the story of the lady (shown as snapshots), and the story of the cyclist is different, and bears no relation to her interaction with them. No matter what our interaction with the person, their life is not influenced by us!

You meet people in your life, whom you certainly have a lot of influence on. The watchman in the bank is set as a classic example. In the 1^st run, he teases Lola initially, and later on he is shown as a person with a good heart, when he says everyone has a bad day. In the 3^rd run, after Lola’s stare, he suffers a cardiac arrest, and while in the ambulance, when the doctors try to restore his heartbeat, she gets in, and she could help it make normal. Lola’s father is set as another example, as in each of the run, his interaction with her is different, and is influenced by what she does to him.

Now, to the two main themes covered, first one, the importance of chaos and random events in daily life. One such example is what happens to Meier in the 3 runs. In the 1^st run, because he turns and looks Lola, he is a bit slow, and his car is being hit by another car. In the 2^nd run, he does not look at Lola, and the other car comes and hit his car. In the 3^rd run, he sees the running person is Lola, and he asks her if anything is wrong. Because of that delay, no accident takes place at that point, however, later in the movie; there is another accident which turns out to be fatal for Meier. Another character who is shown affected by random event is the man who takes the bag from the train. In the 1^st 2 runs, he takes the bag and goes away. In the 3^rd run, he buys the cycle, but Manni meets him in his bicycle, confronts him and takes the bag back. There are many more events in the movie attributed to chaos, like Lola spotting the casino, Manni seeing the homeless man on cycle etc etc.

Now, to what I think was the main message behind the movie. The movie deals about how we can control the chaos or randomness that happens in our life. It illustrates that if we have enough motivating factors (here, it is love), we can, at least up to an extent, control what is going to happen. There are scenes in the movie where Lola asks Manni if he really loves her, and Manni asks what she will do if he is dead. They both want to be with each other, and when they realize that, they change their approaches, and decide to change what happens to them. The 3^rd run, which ends on a happy note, is after both of them are shown realizing that they love each other, and after they decide to control what happens to them.

On a lighter note, you can even think that the movie talks about relations, when Lola is ready to do anything to save her boyfriend; her parents are involved in extramarital relations. Ideally, it is a movie, left to the viewer’s interpretation like any other. Watch it and see it for yourself.

The Indian “economic” system

India is believed to be one of the major growing economies today, and one with a very positive outlook. A country with “Mission 2020”, dreams soaring really high, and huge expectations of turning to a superpower. A small introspection:

What we (middle/ rich class) talk about:

Most of the topics that interest us are concentrated in the entertainment domain. Movies and Cricket contribute for a huge chunk of the small talks, and majority of the debates. The next spot is occupied by fashion, a hot topic particularly among the ladies, and nowadays among men too.

Now, when the fuel prices are up, we start talking about inflation. We draw up comparisons with the previous few years’ prices, and also with the neighboring countries’ prices. Depending on the different levels of income, the different topics discussed in this context will be vegetables, fuel and gold.

Once, or twice in a year, we turn extremely patriotic, and that is when we talk about corruption. The hot topics here will be Anna Hazare and Commonwealth games, closely followed by Baba Ramdev, 2G scam and numerous other scams which the Indian government is very generous to provide us with.

What the media reports:

Most of the daily headlines has something to do with politicians (rather than politics), and is usually about him criticizing his old party/ally or the opposition party.

Whenever there is a hunger strike, the headlines report about corruption, Jan Lokpal, the activists behind it, the celebrity supporters for it, and so on. It is important to note that, even if media plays a good role reporting the scams and corruption, only the major (huge amount) ones get considerable attention.

The rest of the topics that attracts media attention are sports, bollywood and economics. In sports, the main news will be about Cricket, once in a while a comparison of the Olympics team’s achievement with the “huge population” perspective to it. In Bollywood, it is usually the male and female cat fights, and in economics, falling rupee and inflation takes the top spot.

What the government talks about:

During the “corruption season”, the government ensures that all steps will be taken to combat it, and even if Lokpal bill may not be passed, it promises that there will be no more scams, and the system will be cleaned slowly.

During every fuel price rise, inflation will be deeply considered by the finance ministry, and due importance will be given to prevent the downslide of rupee.

The government congratulates the achievements of the Indian cricket team, the Olympics and Commonwealth contingent, appoints different celebrities in the government.   

P.S: The above points are with respect to a usual day. Now, when something unusual happens, like a terrorist/ regional/religious attacks, focus of the 3 groups shift to it. Government talks about Pakistan hands in it, media talks about the failure of Indian intelligence, and we talk about anything and everything related to it for 1-2 days.

The vicious circle

Government speaks about corruption, inflation, sometimes about entertainment. Media reports it, and we also talk about it. We discuss the problems, media reports it, and government solves or promises to solve it. The circle continues, and superficially, everything seems fine (assuming government solves the problems). 

Just that we are missing a “small” point here. All the above points, be it sports, movies, inflation, corruption (big scams), Jan Lokpal, it effectively applies to just around 20 percent of the total Indian population. The “we” formed by the middle and the rich class does not even form one quarter of Indian population.

What actually bothers the majority of Indians:

India is one of the highest producer and exporter of wheat and rice in the world. Agriculture is still the main contributor of Indian economy. Still,

1. 47% of Indian children are malnourished. The prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world, and is nearly double that of Sub-Saharan Africa.
2. India is home to about 25% of the world's hungry poor.
3. More than half of all pregnant women aged between 15 and 49 years suffer from anemia. 
4. On an average, 50 farmers commit suicide daily.

All this, despite India being a place where we have a Public Distribution System (PDS), started with an aim of maintaining food security, so that rice and wheat is available to the poorest of the poor at very low cost.

Where does it go wrong? The simplest answer that comes to my mind is corruption. Not the big scams, not the multi crore network /sports/coal scams, but the small ones in the PDS. Certain minor aspects like deserving people not getting the BPL card, and the undeserving possessing it. PDS being actively involved in black market and selling the food products at a higher price to other shops, PDS adulterating the remaining food items and selling it to the poor, food products reaching PDS very late due to inefficiency in the system, and huge stocks getting rotten year after year, poor people not being aware of the existence of such PDS systems. 

Neither the media, nor us, or the government, play a role in educating the poor about the system. No media reports about the small scams, no one talks about it. No debates are held by the middle class about hunger, no one wants to think about it. Even if everyone is aware of it, we just shut our mind away from it, all because we do not want to go out of our comfort zone. We do not want to think about it and get disturbed, media do not get any considerable profit from it, and the government is rarely bothered by it.

How much ever we progress economically, whatever is our GDP, if the majority of the people are hungry, and are deprived of the basic human necessities, then what use is it? I wonder if there will be a time when the national indicators are hunger, poverty and malnutrition, rather than GDP and per capita income. I wonder if there will be a time when the economic situation of a country is determined by the number of un-fed stomachs, rather than by the value of currency. A time when media concentrates on the real news troubling the majority of the population, rather than touching superficial matters. Above all, I wonder, if there will be people amongst us, willing to get rid of the comfort zone we are in, sacrifice our riches, and fight and strive for the basic rights of the poor. In my humble opinion, India can start its race to be a super power then.

Capital Punishment

There was a time when people were executed by boiling, crushing by elephants, devouring by alligators and crocodiles, tearing apart by horses, burning alive, removing skin from the body, decapitating, breaking back, and even cooking to death. Most, if not all of these executions were carried out by the then governments, and were in accordance to the laws that existed.

The various governments around the world establishes different fundamental rights, including the right to equality, education, freedom of speech, cultural rights, right against exploitation and many others. However, one cannot deny that the most fundamental of all rights is the right to live, or in other words, the right not to get killed. Interestingly, the importance of this right discussed in the context of capital punishment is rare, compared to those of euthanasia, abortion or wars. Is this because the "unconditional" right to life is just an illusion?

One question that I had asked myself for quite some time is what grants the government, the right to kill people. Is it a certain set of books which has a system of rules to regulate the behavior of countrymen that we call today as “law”? Or is it a tribunal presided over by people who have expertise in the so called regulating rules? Then, why is it that the killer cannot believe in his group of advisors, and his rule-books, which asks him to kill others! How come, it is “illegal” when an ordinary person kills and “legal” when the government does it? Isn’t the concept of law and legality relative?

Generally speaking, the principle that binds together human life is not law, but morality. If you consider the moral aspect of killing, you tend to observe that you are talking about matter in vacuum. There is absolutely no morality in killing, whoever the killer is, be it the person we tag as a criminal, or the system we refer to as the government.

The only argument which I had for supporting capital punishment is that it will be a deterrent for similar crimes in future. But again, if you think about it, do you think serial killers and rapists consider their potential demise via capital punishment? Do you think they are scared and their “psycho” mindset is bothered by capital punishment? Criminals, especially psychologically affected ones, operate with the belief that they never get caught. Now, coming to terrorists or religious fanatics, they are people who are ready to operate as suicide bombers. And you think capital punishment is going to change them from committing crimes or terror?

One thing which we all easily forget is that there is no “un-do” option in life. By killing the person who committed the crime, we are not “un-do”ing /cannot “un-do” the crimes committed by him. Of course, we can prevent him from committing future crimes, but that can be prevented by far better means than killing. Depending upon the level of crime, people think that retribution is the only option, and that is mostly because they are driven by emotions, rather than by logic. The very basic fact that most of us ignore is that killing one person is never “more right” than killing someone else.

After reading the methods of execution that existed earlier, we feel happy that the world has “evolved”. Decapitation, boiling and cooking has undergone “reforms” and are now replaced by quicker electrocution, lethal injection and hanging. However, on deeper analysis, we understand that there has been no significant change. We have just changed the method of execution, we might have reduced the torture associated with it, but execution as such still exists, and it will exist as long as there are like minded people supporting it.