The Gods of today are noise lovers.. more like a cult of Slayer or Megadeth. They love the deafening sounds which dozens multi-thousand watt speakers can jarr out.. Noise seems to be the sine qua non of any prayer or a festival nowadays.
Come the Ganesh festival and a whole fortnight of brain numbing noises, called devotional songs, penetrate the already polluted aura around you. Come Divali and you have unrestrained use of fireworks in public places. Come Holi and hooligans take to the streets with drums, trumpeting their way through each and every street, creating a mess wherever they go. As if the human race had not had enough, there is the usual howling each day in a mosque and the chants in temples.
Lets take the example of the Maharashtra govt. Earlier, it has passed a rule to ban the use of loud-speakers from 10 p.m to 6 a.m. in the morning. What it essentially meant was that between 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. you have no right to demand sanity and peace. If you are sick, unwell or trying to enjoy a peaceful moment while the festivities are going on.. let me welcome to the real world. You are not allowed that priviledge. Those 8 hours of peace were apparently the time when the Gods slept and if they were disturbed then, all hell could break lose.
The final nail in the coffin is just about to come for all peace lovers in Maharashtra when the goverment seeks to relax the "loud-speaker timings" (as they are called) during festivals. Even though this noise makes an ailing person die, the gods must be pleased. Though humanity suffers, spiritualism must prosper.
Waiting for the day when prayers go like this...
If I start to lose my mind, please pry it open...
If my face become sincere, beware..
If I start to come undone, stich me together...
If you see me strut.. remind me of.. what left this outlaw torn.
( The Outlaw Torn, Metallica )
~Dead Pep
Friday, August 26, 2005
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
To Err is Human.... To Blame, Politician.
While Mumbai saw a deluge of rains... It looked like the Gods were hell-bent on sinking this piece of land under the seabed. There was water that could submerge humans which were 6 feet tall... the sewage lines choked.. trains, buses and all commute stalled.. and people were left stranded where they were... it appeared to be the end of the world. But it stopped and as it turns out it has been a bit more than a rude awakening since then...
As usual, the Indian junta started its howling, protesting and cribbing in the aftermath. The environmentalists, the media and the "mumbaikars" did not lose even a moment in blaming the governement for the catastrophe. People blamed the politicians for the very little interest in they showed the city other than making individual fortunes and siphoning off the revenues to their own constituencies.
And in the recent developments, the Mumbai Govt has banned the use of plastic bags in the State. Whats more, manufacturers and stores selling plastic bags will be fined Rs 5,000, while individuals using bags face penalties of Rs 1,000. This is just the icing on the cake... Guess what could be next... A ban on wrapping your stuff in a newspaper or using soap while bathing ? This is just the typical indian politics.. "When nothing else works, ban something". The irony of the fact is that, the environmentalists welcome this move. This ban if imposed would leave 1 lakh people unemployed overnight. So, it might take the entire mumbai population to be paying fines each day to make up for their salaries and payouts.
Does the govt have a plan for them ? You would hope they would.
Has the govt considered how much of corruption and malpractice it would lead to ? You would hope they have.
Have they considered what would be an alternate to the handy plastic bags which proud shoppers flaunt as they make their walk out of a shopping mall or a vegetable market ? One sure hopes so.
But if all hopes could turn to realities, there would be no misery in the world. Sigh.. Hopes are nothing but hopes and I just hope that this "optimism" pays off and I live to see Mumbai turning into a Singapore one day.
This reflects the terrible short-sightedness and the incapability that surrounds the indian political scenario. The last I had checked, India was a democracy where everyone had a right to everything that was within legal limits... where one could proudly pursue his ambitions and dreams. But, this plastic ban seeks to do just the opposite... it is just a tad lesser than stifling the people of the country of things they can use and things that they cannot. I fail to fathom, what would such a move achieve. Instead of empowering the people to make wise and knowledgeable decisions, instead of educating them on the pros and cons of using plastics these drastic moves are just another way of invoking an uproar.
A few alternatives that could have been taken...
a. Educate the public on the perils or using such things and the possible harm this can cause to the infrastrucuture and the environment. Create an awareness of using paper bags and recycling them. Cleanliness cannot be substituted by these foolish and rash rules. People are ready to listen and no one needs to teach Indians how to adopt. If they are convinced that it is for their betterment, they WILL listen and comply.
b. Impose strict rules on littering, squatting and loitering in the open rather than making people pay fines just for carrying around plastic bags. Ofcourse, we Indians never go down without a fight and hence heavy fines and\or imprisonments might have to be levied if these have to be followed. Guess why I have never seen a train stopped by pulling the chain by anyone just for amusement ?
c. Stop the morchas, the yaatras, the high profile visits of VIPs. They do nothing but disrupt the life of a normal citizen and arouse hatred. Instead, build on contingency and evacuation plans in case of such natural calamities.
It is upto the people to wake up from their slumber and realize the potential that their vote has. It is they who voted this government to power. It is they who have put these incompetent morons in those prestigious positions. What they fail to realize that , these politicians have made politics their profession and it is no more done for the benefits of the society. Instead, it is their livelihood and they can go to any limits to flourish from it.
~Dead Pep
As usual, the Indian junta started its howling, protesting and cribbing in the aftermath. The environmentalists, the media and the "mumbaikars" did not lose even a moment in blaming the governement for the catastrophe. People blamed the politicians for the very little interest in they showed the city other than making individual fortunes and siphoning off the revenues to their own constituencies.
And in the recent developments, the Mumbai Govt has banned the use of plastic bags in the State. Whats more, manufacturers and stores selling plastic bags will be fined Rs 5,000, while individuals using bags face penalties of Rs 1,000. This is just the icing on the cake... Guess what could be next... A ban on wrapping your stuff in a newspaper or using soap while bathing ? This is just the typical indian politics.. "When nothing else works, ban something". The irony of the fact is that, the environmentalists welcome this move. This ban if imposed would leave 1 lakh people unemployed overnight. So, it might take the entire mumbai population to be paying fines each day to make up for their salaries and payouts.
Does the govt have a plan for them ? You would hope they would.
Has the govt considered how much of corruption and malpractice it would lead to ? You would hope they have.
Have they considered what would be an alternate to the handy plastic bags which proud shoppers flaunt as they make their walk out of a shopping mall or a vegetable market ? One sure hopes so.
But if all hopes could turn to realities, there would be no misery in the world. Sigh.. Hopes are nothing but hopes and I just hope that this "optimism" pays off and I live to see Mumbai turning into a Singapore one day.
This reflects the terrible short-sightedness and the incapability that surrounds the indian political scenario. The last I had checked, India was a democracy where everyone had a right to everything that was within legal limits... where one could proudly pursue his ambitions and dreams. But, this plastic ban seeks to do just the opposite... it is just a tad lesser than stifling the people of the country of things they can use and things that they cannot. I fail to fathom, what would such a move achieve. Instead of empowering the people to make wise and knowledgeable decisions, instead of educating them on the pros and cons of using plastics these drastic moves are just another way of invoking an uproar.
A few alternatives that could have been taken...
a. Educate the public on the perils or using such things and the possible harm this can cause to the infrastrucuture and the environment. Create an awareness of using paper bags and recycling them. Cleanliness cannot be substituted by these foolish and rash rules. People are ready to listen and no one needs to teach Indians how to adopt. If they are convinced that it is for their betterment, they WILL listen and comply.
b. Impose strict rules on littering, squatting and loitering in the open rather than making people pay fines just for carrying around plastic bags. Ofcourse, we Indians never go down without a fight and hence heavy fines and\or imprisonments might have to be levied if these have to be followed. Guess why I have never seen a train stopped by pulling the chain by anyone just for amusement ?
c. Stop the morchas, the yaatras, the high profile visits of VIPs. They do nothing but disrupt the life of a normal citizen and arouse hatred. Instead, build on contingency and evacuation plans in case of such natural calamities.
It is upto the people to wake up from their slumber and realize the potential that their vote has. It is they who voted this government to power. It is they who have put these incompetent morons in those prestigious positions. What they fail to realize that , these politicians have made politics their profession and it is no more done for the benefits of the society. Instead, it is their livelihood and they can go to any limits to flourish from it.
~Dead Pep
Friday, August 12, 2005
From one citizen to another...
This goes to anyone who definition of patriotism is one or many from these...
a. Watch cricket, shout at all the Pakistani players and applaud the Indians no matter how badly they suck.
b. Be an audience to all the Pakistan bashing Hindi movies and come out with a sense of pride and accomplishment.
c. Pay your taxes and feel that your job is done.
d. Disregard the Indian brand of goods and buy a Tommy Hilfiger, a Red Tape , a Lee Cooper with a feeling that India is really improving.
But brethren and otherwise, our duty just begins now.. A few startling facts should paint the picture clear...
a. If International standards were employed in gauging poverty, a humungous 390 million of our population is below the poverty line...that is almost 40 percent of the Indian population.
b. A mere 28 percent of the entire population of India has access to clean sanitation facilities.
c. Around 1 percent of the population of India is HIV infected. If this trend were to continue, then in a few years the largest concentration of HIV carriers in the world would be in India.
I know that we have been hearing that there has been a burgeoning and wealthy middle class that has been developing, the IT boom, the Telecom boom and the Auto boom and the huge remittances that NRIs have been flodding into India. But the truth of the matter is...
a. IT employs a bit more than 1 million people right now, which is less than 0.1 percent of the population.
b. The remittances are not public money and most of it is squandered away into buying real estate or something of the like rather than being spent or invested into capital markets. So even though India is the largest receiver of remittances from NRIs, amounting to around 17 billion, they are contributing very less towards the development.
c. India does not have a single auto testing facility comparable to the likes of Mira, UK or HMTRI, China. There are critical gaps in India’s auto infrastructure with no facilities for crash testing, wind tunnel tests etc. The one that is envisaged is supposed to be up by 2015. That is a decade down the line !!
d. The so-called IT boom is already under a lot of flux with increasing attrition and wages. Companies under a lot of pressure to retain their profits are constantly eyeing newer and cheaper markets like China. It wont be long when we will be saying "My job got Shanghaied".
Well, then the quintessential question arises....What can we do ? How can a single citizen help ? Here are a few tips... These are not elixirs and their efficacy is not tested but the fundamentals are strongly rooted and their success depends on how widely they are employed.
a. Be Indian, Buy Indian.
Avoid the glamour of the west. West is not the Best always... buy a Liberty footwear and you will know the difference. Avoid those Cokes, and Pepsis if you can. The money each Indian spends on Indian goods remains in India, and is routed back towards creating a more profitable industry and in the process everyone around it flourishes. This will not only empower the Indian companies to compete locally but one day they will be global players too.. competing with the Lee Coopers and Red Tapes in their own homeland.
b. Defy corruption.. Go for eGovernance.
Corruption is the biggest cause of concern for modern India. We are a part of the system and in many cases we might have to succumb to it unwillingly. The best way to get rid of it is to avoid it altogether. The Government of India and the World Bank are pouring millions of dollars towards eGovernance. What this means in simple terms is that most governmental tasks can be done on the internet. This will have a myriad of benefits. It will avoid long queues in offices, save time, save effort and can be easily accountable. Be in the knowhow of what can be done online and what cant be. For e.g Most RTO registrations, Travel registrations, Payemnt of water, electricity, sewage bills can be done online. Any buffoon would agree that paying online is simpler than standing in a queue for hours together. Whats more, this will help avoid any form of interaction with humans leading to avoiding corruption slowly but surely.
c. Raise Concerns and Grievances.
Raise your concerns, Give your suggestions. Be it a small pothole on the street across your house, a faulty cable hanging on the light pole or be a leaky drainage pipe. As long as you learn to live with it.. you will end up living so.
d. Oblivion is not bliss.
Know your rights, know your duties and know what is going around you. Even animals are curious creatures. Man, the most fantastic and supreme being on the planet, if devoid of curiosity will soon become an extinct species. Ask a receipt every time you buy stuff, park your vehicle or pay your rent. Use Credit\Debit Cards rather than cash. The biggest sin one can commit is being unaware of what is going on.
e. It is never about Religion.
Religion is supposed to set you free. The very instance a religion tries to tie you down, it loses its motive. As long as one is a firm believer in his faith, nothing can deter him from what he knows or what he believes. Stay aware from emotion arousing conflits, most of which can be politically fuelled. A fight over religion never helped anybody and it is the last thing India can afford. One must be magnanimous and forgiving. This is the most essential difference between humans and other creatures inhabiting the earth. Every man has the capacity to forgive and it does not take a saint to do so. Religion is for Man and not the other way around.
Ofcourse, these have to go hand in hand with others doing the same. But atleast there has to be a start. The light is buring and shining brightly for the masses. What's needed is to reach out towards it.
~Dead Pep
a. Watch cricket, shout at all the Pakistani players and applaud the Indians no matter how badly they suck.
b. Be an audience to all the Pakistan bashing Hindi movies and come out with a sense of pride and accomplishment.
c. Pay your taxes and feel that your job is done.
d. Disregard the Indian brand of goods and buy a Tommy Hilfiger, a Red Tape , a Lee Cooper with a feeling that India is really improving.
But brethren and otherwise, our duty just begins now.. A few startling facts should paint the picture clear...
a. If International standards were employed in gauging poverty, a humungous 390 million of our population is below the poverty line...that is almost 40 percent of the Indian population.
b. A mere 28 percent of the entire population of India has access to clean sanitation facilities.
c. Around 1 percent of the population of India is HIV infected. If this trend were to continue, then in a few years the largest concentration of HIV carriers in the world would be in India.
I know that we have been hearing that there has been a burgeoning and wealthy middle class that has been developing, the IT boom, the Telecom boom and the Auto boom and the huge remittances that NRIs have been flodding into India. But the truth of the matter is...
a. IT employs a bit more than 1 million people right now, which is less than 0.1 percent of the population.
b. The remittances are not public money and most of it is squandered away into buying real estate or something of the like rather than being spent or invested into capital markets. So even though India is the largest receiver of remittances from NRIs, amounting to around 17 billion, they are contributing very less towards the development.
c. India does not have a single auto testing facility comparable to the likes of Mira, UK or HMTRI, China. There are critical gaps in India’s auto infrastructure with no facilities for crash testing, wind tunnel tests etc. The one that is envisaged is supposed to be up by 2015. That is a decade down the line !!
d. The so-called IT boom is already under a lot of flux with increasing attrition and wages. Companies under a lot of pressure to retain their profits are constantly eyeing newer and cheaper markets like China. It wont be long when we will be saying "My job got Shanghaied".
Well, then the quintessential question arises....What can we do ? How can a single citizen help ? Here are a few tips... These are not elixirs and their efficacy is not tested but the fundamentals are strongly rooted and their success depends on how widely they are employed.
a. Be Indian, Buy Indian.
Avoid the glamour of the west. West is not the Best always... buy a Liberty footwear and you will know the difference. Avoid those Cokes, and Pepsis if you can. The money each Indian spends on Indian goods remains in India, and is routed back towards creating a more profitable industry and in the process everyone around it flourishes. This will not only empower the Indian companies to compete locally but one day they will be global players too.. competing with the Lee Coopers and Red Tapes in their own homeland.
b. Defy corruption.. Go for eGovernance.
Corruption is the biggest cause of concern for modern India. We are a part of the system and in many cases we might have to succumb to it unwillingly. The best way to get rid of it is to avoid it altogether. The Government of India and the World Bank are pouring millions of dollars towards eGovernance. What this means in simple terms is that most governmental tasks can be done on the internet. This will have a myriad of benefits. It will avoid long queues in offices, save time, save effort and can be easily accountable. Be in the knowhow of what can be done online and what cant be. For e.g Most RTO registrations, Travel registrations, Payemnt of water, electricity, sewage bills can be done online. Any buffoon would agree that paying online is simpler than standing in a queue for hours together. Whats more, this will help avoid any form of interaction with humans leading to avoiding corruption slowly but surely.
c. Raise Concerns and Grievances.
Raise your concerns, Give your suggestions. Be it a small pothole on the street across your house, a faulty cable hanging on the light pole or be a leaky drainage pipe. As long as you learn to live with it.. you will end up living so.
d. Oblivion is not bliss.
Know your rights, know your duties and know what is going around you. Even animals are curious creatures. Man, the most fantastic and supreme being on the planet, if devoid of curiosity will soon become an extinct species. Ask a receipt every time you buy stuff, park your vehicle or pay your rent. Use Credit\Debit Cards rather than cash. The biggest sin one can commit is being unaware of what is going on.
e. It is never about Religion.
Religion is supposed to set you free. The very instance a religion tries to tie you down, it loses its motive. As long as one is a firm believer in his faith, nothing can deter him from what he knows or what he believes. Stay aware from emotion arousing conflits, most of which can be politically fuelled. A fight over religion never helped anybody and it is the last thing India can afford. One must be magnanimous and forgiving. This is the most essential difference between humans and other creatures inhabiting the earth. Every man has the capacity to forgive and it does not take a saint to do so. Religion is for Man and not the other way around.
Ofcourse, these have to go hand in hand with others doing the same. But atleast there has to be a start. The light is buring and shining brightly for the masses. What's needed is to reach out towards it.
~Dead Pep
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
From Empathy to Antipathy....
Generosity or philanthrophy is a highly misunderstood term. It is the notion of many that it simply means throwing alms in the a beggars bowl or donating money to a charity. Rarely do these novice philanthropists care what happens hence.
Well, say for instance, the cadger could go to a local toddy shop.. get drunk..and while staggering on his way to his hutment.. create a ruckus on the road.. causing a fatal accident and killing a few. Who was the cause ? The beggar, the preposterous traffic situation on most indian roads, the unassuming toddy seller or the "saint" who financed him ?
The soft hearted might be led to believe that everyone played its part, but, that is where it goes wrong. This situation demands the services of the analytical brain. Had the money not been donated.. the toddy would not have been consumed.. the senses still retained and mostly a few ill-fated souls would have lived on to meet their doom due to another similar act.
Well, the expert debaters could argue that - Someone else could have played the beggars part or The toddy seller would still be selling his stuff, the situation could have still occured. Amidst this profuse brainwork that is going on they fail to understand one simple fact or grasp the reality of it.... Atleast you would not have been the catalyst for this anticlimax.
I am asked by many of my colleagues, how can I be so cold hearted ? How can I not be beleaguered by the poverty surrounding me ? A complex answer is in the offing for this deceptively simple question...
"I know the difference between Empathy and Antipathy and anything between them"
For me a transition between these metaphorical states of human emotions happens like this
Empathetic---> Sympathetic --> Apathetic --> Antipathetic.
(Empathy - Somebody gets hurt and you feel the pain.
Sympathy - Somebody gets hurt and you feel bad about it.
Apathy - Somebody gets hurt and you are not affected.
Antipathy - Somebody gets hurt and you start dancing with joy.)
I know that I am not a messiah to feel the pang of others getting hurt, so I am not Empathetic. Nor am I so cold blooded to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the fickleness that life offers, so I am definitely not antipathetic. I do feel bad about bad things happening to people but it is the same me who doesnt give a tiddly-squat for some one who advertently or otherwise does things that harm others. For instance, I sympathize with the beggar who died on the road but I dont care a damn for the philanthrophist who could not think but two minutes in front of his nose.
With great generosity comes great responsibilties and you need not be a Peter Parker to do a good deed. A bit of common sense will do the job.
-Dead Pep
Well, say for instance, the cadger could go to a local toddy shop.. get drunk..and while staggering on his way to his hutment.. create a ruckus on the road.. causing a fatal accident and killing a few. Who was the cause ? The beggar, the preposterous traffic situation on most indian roads, the unassuming toddy seller or the "saint" who financed him ?
The soft hearted might be led to believe that everyone played its part, but, that is where it goes wrong. This situation demands the services of the analytical brain. Had the money not been donated.. the toddy would not have been consumed.. the senses still retained and mostly a few ill-fated souls would have lived on to meet their doom due to another similar act.
Well, the expert debaters could argue that - Someone else could have played the beggars part or The toddy seller would still be selling his stuff, the situation could have still occured. Amidst this profuse brainwork that is going on they fail to understand one simple fact or grasp the reality of it.... Atleast you would not have been the catalyst for this anticlimax.
I am asked by many of my colleagues, how can I be so cold hearted ? How can I not be beleaguered by the poverty surrounding me ? A complex answer is in the offing for this deceptively simple question...
"I know the difference between Empathy and Antipathy and anything between them"
For me a transition between these metaphorical states of human emotions happens like this
Empathetic---> Sympathetic --> Apathetic --> Antipathetic.
(Empathy - Somebody gets hurt and you feel the pain.
Sympathy - Somebody gets hurt and you feel bad about it.
Apathy - Somebody gets hurt and you are not affected.
Antipathy - Somebody gets hurt and you start dancing with joy.)
I know that I am not a messiah to feel the pang of others getting hurt, so I am not Empathetic. Nor am I so cold blooded to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the fickleness that life offers, so I am definitely not antipathetic. I do feel bad about bad things happening to people but it is the same me who doesnt give a tiddly-squat for some one who advertently or otherwise does things that harm others. For instance, I sympathize with the beggar who died on the road but I dont care a damn for the philanthrophist who could not think but two minutes in front of his nose.
With great generosity comes great responsibilties and you need not be a Peter Parker to do a good deed. A bit of common sense will do the job.
-Dead Pep
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