Their way or the highway

You're always wrong. Every thing you do is wrong. You have a problem. Rather you are the problem. Nothing is right when it comes to you. It’s like a disease with no cure. You're destined to be doomed. There seems to be no way out of it. The only way out is you rot yourself out. Be someone you are not. Because its not ’right’.
You are caught. You cant do anything. You are helpless. You have no control. All you can do is take it all until you cant take it anymore. You are the problem. You are being convicted for being yourself. You need to realize that you have a problem. Big time. Your mind is distorted. You cant think straight. You’ve probably lost it. Its all dark. Its like drowning in water. Helpless. You are a lost cause. You can never be right again. Hell would be a walk in the park. Emotional extremities. Loss of balance. Bad symptoms galore. Wait you cant die, because then you would be in a better place called hell. But wait. A ray of hope. Maybe a way out. Change who you are. Shed your soul. Who cares anyways. Its to see if you ‘fit’ into the scheme of things around. If not, you have to be reshaped. No liberty. You cant afford it. Who are you? You are no one until someone around you decides what you are. You have no inherent identity. If you do, that is your problem. You don’t fit. Fit or quit. It aint a rose if it aint red. Follow the rules of existence or cease to exist. The price you pay for being what you are. Outclassed. Outlawed. Exiled. The price you pay for trying to fit. Its either their way or the highway. The annihilation of self. I present you my Lord, my distorted soul.


“Every step I take is another mistake for you.”

--- Linkin Park in ‘Numb’

This one goes out for the 'city-bred-pseudos'

“We are the next superpower…..”

If I had a rupee every time someone said that, I would have several Mittals washing my army of Maybachs with mineral water. We Indians have used our new found growth as a shield; whenever we lack valid arguments in those all so prevalent ‘how-my-country-can-beat-up-your-country’ debates. The most common contenders in these tournaments are of course India and the USA.

The new young, hip and vibrant India seems to be sending out a ‘dare all’ message. We openly proclaim our ambition to become a superpower by 2020. Our missile man – turned President has even written a book on it. Well, there’s nothing wrong in being ambitious. But a serious ‘reality check’ is due. And before we dismiss America as a land of fat couch potatoes with easy money and who need counselling to relieve shopping stress; we need to think again.

“Those American kids are so dumb. My 10 year old Bunty can solve problems from an 8th standard American mathematics book.” That is not a problem. The problem is that this is all an average Bunty can do. Although Mommy does send him to classical Hindustani music classes, but that is only because she hopes that someday he’ll become the next Indian Idol. So what if he likes painting more? There is no Indian Idol for talent in painting. The point I am trying to make here is that we always want our kids to follow well-oiled tracks of proven career choices. What? Your daughter wants to become a sculptor? Where’s the money in that? We need to realize that a career is not chosen on the basis of how much money one gets or the associated ‘glam factor’. It is about what you really like and what you think you are good at. Because if you like something then you inherently give it your best shot. Then money is a natural progression. The 10th standard American kid might not be as sharp as our Bunty when it comes to solving maths problems but he does have knowledge about different world religions, Greek or Egyptian mythology, Russian or French revolution or even pottery for that matter. Because his curriculum straight till his 10th standard included these subjects. Also these subjects weren’t thrust upon him. He had the weapon of choice. In India, we repeat the Indian Independence struggle thrice as a part of history in 10 years of school curriculum. Moral of the story: give all areas of education, equal importance. “Those American schools are so bad, kids carry guns and shoot each other!” In India, kids carry camera phones to school to ‘shoot’ their classmates doing the ‘ahem’ stuff. (read DPS) So, yeah our kids don’t carry guns and kill each other but they aren’t Tibetan monks either. And at the rate at which we are going, that day is not far when we’d have little mujahideens running around with pistols.
We take pride in proclaiming that the IITs are the best engineering colleges in the world. Probably not even the brightest of Americans teenagers would clear the IIT-JEE exam. (our Bunty did; in flying colours). But we shouldn’t forget that in spite of this, some of the greatest inventions in the last century (read microprocessor, the Internet, etc.) have come from America. Now how did they manage that without having an IIT? Some food for thought, aint it? “

Bangalore: a la San Hose. The next IT boomtown of the world. Yes, we call ourselves the IT superpower already. Look Uncle Sam, we have Infosys. Well, try asking any random person on the road, what does Infosys do? “They do something related to computer, software is it? Doesn’t matter, sounds hi-tech enough for me.” To put it simply they write software for various ‘Fortune 500’ companies. They do take pride in highlighting their esteemed clientele, which are mostly American companies. Step in, problem number two. We need to stop being satisfied with being a service-oriented economy. We need pioneering companies that develop products like no other in the world. Just developing high end software or attending to abusive calls won’t do. But what about our Tatas and Birlas? Aren’t the big enough? Reliance industries is worth Rs. 96,000 crores. I say that’s pennies. Check this out – the value of IBM’s market liquidity is more than India’s GDP. The point here is that we should refrain from patting our own backs as yet because we still have a long way to go. And yes not just by providing back end support to IBM. But by making our own IBM.

Come 2008, Mumbai will be getting a sea-link which will be the only one of its kind in this part of the world. Isn’t that cool? The capital city of a state gets a flamboyant and expensive arm candy for transport (read Rs. 1600 crores) when it already has a near perfect bus and train system. In the meantime, the rest of the state reels under 4-9 hours of power cuts everyday. The total transmission and theft loss of the MSEB (Maharashtra State Electricity Board) is somewhere around 30% whereas that for the Californian power grid (which is much larger than MSEB) is around 0.03%. Guess the much needed power generating stations can wait but not the sea-link. Problem number three – we need to get our priorities right. When the US talks about building the world’s tallest building, they are rest assured that there won’t be a single power cut. Our reply? Let’s top theirs by building our own tallest building in Noida. Need I say more?

The last and probably the biggest hurdle is our massive ego problem. We have this denial syndrome. We just won’t accept that we are wrong. Just because we fought off the British and achieved independence 58 years ago doesn’t make each and everyone of us, a Gandhi-avatar. I pay my taxes, I vote which means I can jump the red signal. Wait before you do that, keep a 50 rupee note handy, in case the big-bellied cop catches you. This is so convenient, because he rarely takes the trouble of stopping you. Too much hassle you see. Now in the land of Uncle Sam, the cop would probably chase you down and arrest you for this and you would probably end up having your licence suspended. Jeez, why take so much trouble when a mutual agreement over a 50 rupee note could make both parties happy. It happens only in India. (And probably in Surinam)

The pseudo-modernists, pseudo-secularists, God they get on my nerves. Some Software Engineer sitting in the plush living room of the 18th storey pent-house in Bangalore, has opinions about a right wing fundamentalists organisation and how its ruining the secular thread of India. I am no right-wing fundamentalists, (for the record, I am a centrist) but come on. Why deliver your opinions that are solely based on what NDTV reports or what Barkha Dutt thinks. (Don’t even get me started on Aaj-Tak) He probably spent most of his thinking power on some dumb ass software that he writes all day for some American company who probably thought it was to easy and time-consuming to do that in-house. These very fundamentalists parties are extremely vital to maintain a ‘communal balance’ in the country. Otherwise within a few years the text books would say that Prophet Muhammad killed the evil Rama and saved the world from the infidels. On this topic, I could write another article.

At this rate, I see Ivory Coast and Tunisia becoming superpowers before we do. We need to think a little less about what we achieved so far and do much more that is much needed. If we are to become the next superpower, we first need to change our own attitudes towards the country. You and me.

The following is an article written by Mr. Velu Shankar for the magazine ‘Outlook’. Mr. Shankar is former executive producer, Channel V and former programme director, Radio City. I found this article really thought provoking. I think that all the young Indians today(read 52% of the population), should read this article and consider revising their attitude towards their country and its polity.

Teflon-Coated Bubble Wrap Cocoons

In a recent interview, Chief Election Commissioner J. M. Lyngdoh, talking about corruption in politics, said that hope lay in the younger generation as his own had failed to get rid of it. The moot question is: does the younger generation even realize its onerous responsibility?
A recent market survey by a soft drink MNC among its largest segment (read youth) says that 60% of India’s young people are happy, positive, have a high sense of confidence and are raring to go. Is this something to celebrate as part of our all-pervasive India Shining campaign or is it something to ponder over? Where does this happiness originate? Does it come from a Teflon-coated bubble wrap that protects you from questioning or from not seeing oneself as a part of this thriving polity?
All around, I see smugness, a desire to be coopted, a conducted tour of insanity. “I’ll marry a girl of my choice but only with my parents’ approval”; “I’ll choose a career of my liking only if it’s well-paying”; “I won’t upset the status quo or choose a path which will encounter resistance from the entrenched”; “The rich cricketer who bucks the system by not paying duty for his expensive car will be my icon.” This disconnect is disturbing.
Where is the rebellion in them? When I say rebellion, I don’t mean burning buses or themselves, I don’t mean fighting in the streets or in the campuses. Rebelling is a questioning attitude, a healthy contempt of accepting things the way they are, a self-awareness generated within and not confined to what comes out of clever copy-writing of youth brands. Let alone issues of nation building, even issues affecting them fail to enthuse today’s young; a regressive minister and the IIM administration are debating on the future and funding of the IIMs, nothing from the students who are affected. In a freewheeling and chaotic democracy like ours, participation is necessary to keep it healthy. But the prevalent atmosphere is one of apathy and naivete (“All politicians are corrupt, ya?”).
Where did this process begin? When did this alienation start? Has the polity failed to create an atmosphere which gives one an opportunity to experience and participate? Have we as a country alienated ourselves from the benefits of an active young generation from its fresh perspectives, from its lack of post-Independence or socialistic baggage? Is this a symptom of a larger malaise of non-participation the whole nation suffers from? Where does this generation derive its identity? What does it mean to be an Indian? Is it the hazy, hoary past, a revivalist argument of inventing zero and Vedic mathematics that they derive their identity from? Don’t they have anything to relate to in contemporary India? The identity is ambiguous; individually, they are bright, confident lot, but they are defensive when it comes to having a national identity. They are not proud of contemporary India, in spite of the full page cover spreads. The craving for global acceptance and identification as a global citizen also seems to have made today’s youngsters embarrassed about the Indian realities seen negatively in the West.
The system has appropriated the spaces of youngsters. Take college elections, fought on partisan lines, funded and fuelled by mainstream parties. In the city I live in, considered an educational centre, we don’t see any space reflecting the students who populate it. I don’t see the kind of edginess in music, theatre or debate I see in any self-respecting campus town abroad. The highly competitive educational and career choices are definitely taking the most of the youngsters’ time and energy. The system run by geriatrics, where a 50-year old minister is considered young, is alienating them. Lack of fresh ideas and leaders to look up to is denying them the incentive to participate. The cooption of their spaces and thoughts has contributed to their apathy.
But then again isn’t this the time to be stupidly idealistic? Isn’t this the time to protest without expecting concrete results? Isn’t rebellion something that is an intrinsic part of growing up and not something you try to chalk in between gym classes and sessions of visa counseling?