Students of technology and students of architecture love these innovations

Light always manages to surprise me… and the surprises aren’t always slight. With this in mind I went to the media interaction that Philips had planned and let me tell you I was rather impressed by the array of creative LED innovations that they have in their inventory!

There were three questions that I want to address in this review of LED lights. The questions were connected to the environment, the economy, and the aesthetics that must be there in life in the right proportions. Obviously, LED lighting is one of the most profound change the lighting industry has seen since the invention of electric light itself. LEDs are transforming the nature of lighting by opening up new possibilities for how and where artificial light is used to enhance the human experience.

Sustainability and respect for the environment are not just concepts that must be spoken about in launches, seminars, and workshops. These are concepts that need to be diligently followed. And if there are products that follow the tenets of this mantra and, at the same time, helps in extensively beautify the indoor as well as outdoor spaces that surround us, it needs to be applauded. The Philips website claims that ‘LED lighting supports sustainable design in several ways. It uses less energy than most other types of lamp, lasts longer (which means less frequent replacement and therefore reduced waste), is mercury-free, and can be housed in special luminaires designed for easier disassembly and recycling.’

Creative lighting solutions need not be simply innovative in features, they also need to have sound scientifically provable and well documented advantages. For instance, will simply saying that LED lights will emit no heat, UV or infrared in the light beam… or that they contain no mercury, making them fully compliant with all environmental legislation make them a truly sustainable solution? Rahul Taneja from Philips Lighting India echoes a similar view: ‘Light can surprise us on various levels. It can be peaceful and comfortable, stylish and dramatic, or cheerful and festive. Philips’ innovations are based on People’s needs. We constantly listen to ensure that we address people’s real-life needs and aspirations, wherever they are.’

These LED solutions are what students of technology and students of architecture would appreciate. The former for all that makes them such an electronic charmer and the latter for all the sustainability and the enhancement of interiors facets that these innovations bring with them. If I am given th choice to choose from Contemporary, Heritage, Modern, Expressive, and Historical design styles, the architect within me will surely be mighty pleased! And if I am told that all this can be easily converged with the Philips Dynalite Control System that will allow me to control the lights in my home through judicious taps on my smartphone, the electronics and technology buff within me will be excited. The user interface of this smart app is quite easy to understand and execute… thus converting a home into a smart home is fast becoming a possibility. Something that science fiction authors were writing about just a few years back, is coming to us with a real face and a real interface! Such innovative software solutions like the Philips Dynamic Touch and the Envision Touch are fast introducing the concept of smart lighting that may soon become affordable.

Yes, this brings me to the question of economy. However interesting and endearing a product may seem to be, it needs to be in the affordable range for a majority of us. Well, right now this majority is certainly going to be quite less populated. No, not every home can possibly adopt the smart solutions that Philips is offering… barring a few individual products that can be bought as stand-alone pieces that everyone will talk about. For instance, a smart diya that you can blow out with your breathe is sure to be the topic of discussion in any home but one may need to spend more than a thousand rupees for one! If you’re the sort who’d be fascinated with a lighting concept that hides 24 LED nodes and gives non-glaring, clear, and natural light, the award-winning Philips Cielo with its gold and matt black finish will win hearts… but then one has to shell nearly forty-seven thousand rupees for a lighting solution that just hangs over a dining table! But I must say, these products do appear inspiringly creative and real heart-winners!

It is vital to point out that LED lighting solutions have begun their march into our homes… and are poised to enter even the children’s room with lights that adopt the shapes of a butterfly or a ladybug or even a parrot in a suspender! There are LED illuminated vases, platters, wine-coolers, and even coasters that radiate in the darkness! All this illumination comes at a cost, of course, but the experimenter and the home-maker within me says: ‘Let me explore this new world of innovative lighting!’

2013_05_20_The Education Post_A Light Surprise

Arvind Passey
Written on 19 May 2013
Published in ‘The Education Post’ dated 20 May 2013

It is funny. It is serious. It is a habit. The truth is that a lot gets done on the last date. The last date is like an open secret that we mortals are forever exploring and never seem to get tired of.

‘Why do you always wait for the last date and then begin writing your column?’ said Specky when she saw me getting up early in the morning to get busy with my laptop.

I said, ‘Last dates are like Viagra. They make your pulse jog fast, the excitement rises, and then the mind begins getting all the right signals from sexy ideas!’ She just looked at and walked off saying, ‘Shout when you’re ready for breakfast.’

The truth about deadlines is that without them we remain busy with almost everything else in the world. There is always an important launch to attend, a dinner to go to, a vital visit to the store, an interesting book to be read, twitter contests to participate in, or even some inane updates on Facebook to be done. Everything suddenly becomes more important than what you are supposed to be doing… until the deadline or the last date changes the entire complexion! Deadlines, in fact, stimulate the creative juices to flow better and faster! Andrew Bernstein agrees when he wrote: ‘We need to distinguish between stress and stimulation. Having deadlines, setting goals, and pushing yourself to perform at capacity are stimulating. Stress is when you’re anxious, upset, or frustrated, which dramatically reduce your ability to perform.’

By the time I wrote all this, my wife was back from her morning trip to the kitchen and was reading what I was writing. She said, ‘Hmmm… getting down to serious work with a deadline hovering ominously on your head is hardly my idea of a stimulating work environment. I like to finish my work well on time.’ I knew she was telling the truth as she was the sort who always aimed at finishing her work in advance. She was, in fact, a person who was perpetually under duress because the others connected to her assignment weren’t giving her their output on time.

So yes, another facet of deadlines is that they are interesting and stimulating to an individual in a creative sort of way. However, where jobs are to be done, it is much better to remain ahead of them. Look at the civic agencies, for instance… they know that the monsoons bring with them overflowing drains, and yet they fail to set deadline for themselves and invariably wake up late for the mandatory de-silting of the drains that needs to be done every year! The PWD is again so well known to go way beyond deadlines as if they love the sight of a dug up commercial space and people making their way over piled up construction equipment! It is horrible to see trains running late and people saying, ‘Why can’t the railways have a schedule that they can stick to?’

Deadlines are like warning signals to tell us that the task that ought to have been completed is yet pending. These professionals that I have just mentioned must have been the sort of students who invariably begin their studies only when the last date for the final exams knocks at their doors! In most cases, if an assignment or a job or your studies enter the crucial phase of the ‘last date’ it simply means you are bent upon cooking a dish that is going to be a disaster!

So let the romanticism and the poetry of last dates be with the poets and writers like me… so far as you are concerned, just remember to finish your job fast and get on with some other vital task! By the way, your hard work leaves me with enough time to fool around with last dates and write joyful articles like this one!

2013_05_20_The Education Post_The Last Date

Arvind Passey
Written on 19 May 2013
Published in ‘The Education Post’ dated 20 May 2013

What you see and what you imagine can co-exist… not always in a peaceful way, but they can tolerate each other’s presence, I’m sure. So just as voters imagine some promised future, the politician sees them all as distinct groups of people to be sold different dreams. The vital question then is: Who really votes? A voter who imagines he is voting for his dreams or a voter who sees and knows the person he is voting for?

Who is ignorant and who is knowledgeable are factors that aren’t really easy to identify. If Kejriwal wants to enlist students, there will be some political party wanting to woo the minorities, or another going after the under-privileged sections. The politicians and the parties have advisors telling them all about USPs and what their TG should be in a particular State or even constituency. Catchment areas are notified and an action plan is decided upon. Every move becomes more akin to a war with the principles of management strutting around like soldiers in OGs.

Area profiles are drawn up and analysts go berserk trying to decipher numbers and percentages that innumerable polls throw up. The world, just before a nation goes to poll, is reduced to a stage where along with abuses and allegations, lots of complex numbers and the jargon of pollsters are flung at each other… yes, the BJP does it in its own saffron style, the Congress does it as experienced wily foxes do, and all the other parties run around deciding on who will be a foe and who will remain an ally.

Everyone… and I repeat, everyone forgets the voter. No, they don’t wait until the elections are done with and the voter is back in his home with thoughts of what the new dawn might get for him… they do it even as he stands on the street wondering if he is really needed to play this vital role in this periodical drama that is staged? Was it always like this? Well, the proliferation and the extension of the ways in which news is percolated has made sure that the drama has become more intense, more open, and bolder. Euphemisms have long been forgotten… the world of politicking before elections doesn’t encourage subtleties and the finer nuances of back-room politics is a thing of the past.

Elections are now battlefields where strategic intent and tactical manoeuvres are nothing but an all-out-force to reach some powerful number equation. Games are played in the real as well as the virtual world… but hey, where is the voter in all this hullaballoo?

Yes, where is the voter? But then, don’t we all get to read that the percentage of voters has been increasing from election to election… and that the incidence of vote hijacking is almost over… and that more and more people are coming out and sharing their picture with their election mark on Facebook… and that people are animatedly discussing their choices on twitter… and that voters are also blogging and sharing their concern for all to read and reach the right consensus. If all this is happening, why are we still ending up with governments that don’t govern… and leaders who don’t lead?

But let me focus on the voter for a few sentences now… who votes? Do the minorities vote as minorities? Does caste vote as castes? Does age vote as a mere age? Do issues vote as issues? No. It is people who vote… and people cannot be compartmentalised so easily… they are a complex mix of thoughts, ideologies, age, and issues… and it is this complex enigma that steps out to vote.

I hope this time when this complex enigma called a voter, steps out, he or she just knows how to differentiate between fiction and the real fiction!

Arvind Passey
Published in ‘The Education Post’ dated 10 June 2013

I sometimes wonder what I would be had I been born on 16 June 1968 in Sivani in Hissar. Would I too have gone on to complete my BTech from IIT, Kharagpur? Would I too have subsequently joined the IRS and then left it to get the Government of India get serious about the RTI or the Right to Information Act? I have no idea how my future might have unravelled itself. I do know, however, that Arvind Kejriwal has walked this path in chronology and become a name in every household today. 

Well, yes, the political parties too talk about him in hushed and conspiratorial tones, but the aam aadmi certainly believes that this man just might convert some of the dreams that politicians have been showing, into the sort of reality that they have waited for generations now. 

Arvind got the Ramon Magsaysay Award for “Emergent Leadership in 2006 for his contribution to the enactment of the Right to Information Act, 2005 and for activating India’s Right to Information Act movement at grassroots and social activities to empower the poorest citizens of India to fight corruption by holding the government answerable to the people.” After resigning from the IRS in 2006, Arvind founded an NGO (PCRF – Public Cause Research Foundation) by donating his Magsaysay award money as (charity) Corpus fund. 

How many of us, who claim to be impressed by the way he takes on issues like corruption and Government inaction, know that he has also written a 175-page book called ‘Swaraj’. For those interested, the book is in Hindi and published by Harper Hindi (ISBN-13: 9788172237677 and ISBN-10: 8172237677). The book deals with the concepts of the swaraj movement and brings to them a modern and more contemporary reflection. 

The day I met Arvind, he was busy with his agenda at Jantar Mantar… meeting those who suffer, exhorting people to seek redressal to their grievances through law. I heard him out at the Sikh Rally demanding action against Sajjan Kumar and he said loud and clear, ‘We cannot fight on an empty stomach. This government does not hear empty stomachs. This government listens to the whip of the courts. There is no point in dying in front of this government here near Jantar Mantar. It is important to take this battle to the courts.’ I knew I was standing in front of a man who was unafraid to get up and show any Goliath that he cannot be cowered into submission. I knew then that the interview would have some really aggressive insights into the man. 

Aggressive insights however do not mean that Arvind is not a simple man… he is a short-statured person who practices vipassana. He listens. He uses words that are essential. He communicates from his heart that other hearts understand. These are no wild and whirling words… this is what emerged from the few questions that I was able to ask and those that he willingly answered in the short time available to us. 

For the uninitiated, let me also add here that his political journey surely must have begun much before the AAP or the Aam Aadmi Party was formally announced on the 2^nd of October 2012. The name was formalised on the 24^th of November the same year. However, it will be unfair to say that politics was always subliminally present in this man… no, and he admits to it in the interview. He was truly involved with the RTI issue in 1997 until it was formally drafted… and then he continued to be a part of the RTI awareness program even in 2006. 

Anna came to him or he came to Anna is not important… what is vital is that this meeting strengthened his resolve to clean the country of the menace of corruption. It was during this time that the idea of entering politics came to him and he talks about this in the interview. He knew then at one point that there was no turning back. 

So Arvind is here with us. It is, I presume, up to the people now to accept him and not just that, to transform their own selves and help him in his fight against corruption.

The Interview

Arvind Passey (AP): Sir, let me jump straight into the heart of politics first. ‘Corruption will not be an issue in the Delhi election,’ says Sheila Dixit. Why are other political parties reluctant to take up the issue of corruption head-on? What fears do they have?

Arvind Kejriwal (AK): This is because all political parties are corrupt. So obviously a corrupt person will never want corruption to become an issue in elections. But for people, corruption has become an issue of survival. Right from the smallest denominator in the socio-economic ladder, people are not getting rations… people are not getting education… people are not getting health facilities. This is because everything is siphoned off to the big scams that people keep hearing about every day. They are feeling cheated. In the last one year whatever Assembly elections have taken place, corruption was always an issue and corruption will remain an issue for politics till such time as corruption is rooted out.

AP: My only fear is that if there is only party intent upon talking about corruption or bringing up this issue, will the right buzz be created? This despite the fact that people are not happy with seeing the country seeped into corruption.

AK: The buzz is not… I repeat… the buzz is not created by any political party. The buzz is created by the people. The people are suffering and they always want corruption to become an issue. Till now the people didn’t have a choice. They now have a choice.

AP: How will you ensure that AAP or the Aam Aadmi Party will be able to create the right sort of buzz. Do you have the right sort of people to create the right sort of buzz?

AK: Buzz is already created… it is already there… people are already angry about corruption all around them. People are very angry about corruption and they are very agitated about it. The fact that lakhs of people came out on the streets when an old man like Anna Hazare sat on Anshan clearly shows that people are very agitated about corruption. People now want an opening…

AP: According to a newspaper, Bhakt Charan Das, a Congress spokesperson, has lashed out at journalists for taking up what’s not an aam aadmi subject. Do you have fears that your USP of aam aadmi will sooner or later be hijacked by these bigger political parties?

AK: Merely talking about an aam aadmi is not sufficient. Aam aadmi has to feel sympathetic and aligned to the people who are talking about them. If a corrupt person is talking about aam aadmi, obviously the aam aadmi will laugh at him. I repeat that a person has to be connected to aam aadmi to be eligible to talk about the aam aadmi. These current breed of politicians are just not connected to the aam aadmi.

AP: So is this the reason why Congress is shying away from talking about corruption?

AK: Congress is shying away from talking about corruption because the Congress is corrupt. All their leaders are corrupt. So they can’t talk of corruption.

AP: Let me shift the focus to the hero in your campaign… the aam aadmi. I have before me an email that your party sent to thousands. I too got one email and it clearly says: ‘Most of today’s problems are due to corrupt politics.’ Does the aam aadmi really understand that jumping a traffic signal makes him just as corrupt as Raja and his scam of crores? Do think the aam aadmi really understands the essentials of corruption?

AK: Two things are there. Corruption is bad and no one wants corruption to be in our midst. So a person jumping red light also needs to be criticised… and if A Raja siphons off one lakh seventy-six crores that also needs to be criticised. This is because an aam aadmi jumping a traffic light does not give licence to A Raja to indulge in corruption. One person’s corruption does not justify another person’s corruption. Both sorts are bad. But it is also a question of culture and ethos. There has been no deterrence in our society against breaking of the laws. For instance, if you jump a traffic light in the US, there is certainty and swiftness of punishment. You are certain to be punished and the punishment will come upon you immediately. However, in India you know you can get away with murder so it is laxity of law that encourages a culture of corruption. So if the government starts enforcing law very strictly and firmly, I’m sure people will stop breaking the law.

AP: So you believe that people are mature enough to handle power when it comes to them. I say this because you email to the aam aadmi mentions restoring power back to the people. Don’t you think this is a recipe for anarchy? I mean the fact that you intend to hand over power to the people.

AK: Who are you to hand over power to the people? The people are sovereign in a democracy… people are supreme… no one can hand over power to the people. People can snatch away the power from these people (read politicians). It is we the people of India who drafted this constitution… it is we the people of India who built this parliament… it is we the people of India who gave power to these politicians… who are they to give that power back to us? Are you getting my point? So it is people who are sovereign in a democracy. So the people are indeed powerful… so when you ask if people can handle power, the answer is… obviously, the people will exercise this power the way they want to. This means that complete political power lies with the people. Can the people handle it? Well, initially the people might make mistakes but slowly and gradually they will learn from their mistakes and they will get more mature. Therefore, the power that has been taken away from the people needs to be restored to them… they should be allowed to make mistakes. Today the mistakes are being made by the politician and people are suffering because of that.

AP: Power, politics, and finance go together. Do you think only donations from the common man will be enough for the survival of your party?

AK: Yes, because that is the cleanest money that you can imagine. We want to remain clean in politics, so our finances too have to be very clean. I’m sure that just as Barack Obama raised clean money… and this clean money came from ordinary people, the masses… he raised his finances by 3, 5, 10, and 100 dollar contributions from them. I am sure we will also be able to raise sufficient money for running our election campaign and this entire backing will come from the aam aadmi.

AP: What are your other sources of funding for your brand of transparent politics?

AK: Common people. What other sources can there be? There can be no other sources of funding. We will not… err… we will not have any kind of quid pro quo with anyone. This means if there is someone or some company giving me one crore today, there will be some underhand deal of some favour from us. There will be no such thing because our entire list of donors is transparent and every detail in on our website. There will be no undue favours given to anyone.

AP: Ok. Let’s get away from politics, corruption, and finances for now. The internet and the social media are a reality today. No, my question is NOT about the role of social media in politics today. That role is clearly defined by the sort of response it gets. I want to ask you why the conventional politician is so afraid of the social media and the internet as a whole?

AK: Social media is about accountability and if you are there you are also criticised. It’s not that people will always praise you… you are criticised and you need to answer to their criticism. The conventional politician does not want to answer because there are too many skeletons in their cupboard. Only if you clean… only if you’re upfront… can you dare to be there. Social media is like being with the people always… right in their midst… and facebook and twitter demand you to be straight and straight-forward. Otherwise people will jump at you, pounce at you…

AP: Is this why the municipal corporations of Delhi have walked out of Facebook?

AK: I really don’t know about this. Maybe they couldn’t handle the criticism.

AP: So handling criticism is important. How will you ensure that your members, if elected, will be able to handle all the criticism that the social media generates? Will the AAP members also pull out of the social media, if elected?

AK: I think this is an important factor and we will have to put in place all the systems within our party and that they should face the public at regular intervals. We will ensure our presence on the social media.

AP: All around us we find a fascination with branding. Branding is now no longer an exclusive domain of consumer products. Bharat Nirman is how the Congress is using this concept… they sell dreams. Do you think an anti-corruption stance is stronger and sturdier than selling dreams?

AK: What is important is honesty. If you are branding something which is dishonest, people will finally see through it. It will not last. But if you’re propagating a thought, even advertising… and telling the truth, then the people will buy that. Lies don’t last. Bharat Nirman is about telling lies… and just like the India Shining campaign, this too will be a flop. India Shining was a lie. Bharat Nirman is also a lie.

AP: So India Shining was a lie and Bharat Nirman is also a lie. Does this imply that AAP will not be aligning with either of the two major political behemoths?

AK: We will not be affiliated to them.

AP: There was a recent article I read in one of the papers that had ‘Happy teacher will change the world’ as its headline. Politicians also love to change the world… so are they more like teachers?

AK: Politicians are teachers… they are good teachers… everyone is a teacher and everyone is a student in life. Everyone is learning and teaching by his own conduct. So yes, you can say that politicians are like teachers because a lot of people watch them, observe what they do… and ultimately get influenced by them.

AP: Why has AAP appeared only in 2012? You’ve been on the scene for ages now. Why 2012? Is it because such things happen when the masses are ready to accept them? Almost like what Confucius said: When the student is ready, the teacher shall appear! So are the people now ready for a real teacher to lead them?

AK: I think you’re right. Every moment has its specific time of appearance. So maybe this is the right time for AAP. I cannot comment yet on how the masses will respond to the appearance of AAP… but the time for AAP is certainly NOW. However, we cannot yet say anything about the future of AAP.

AP: I know I don’t have all the time in the world to ask you all the questions that need an answer from you. So let me jump straight into another issue that any reader would love read about. Reservations. What is your opinion on reservation? Isn’t it time for India to stop talking of reservation?

AK: You can’t brush away the fact that there are some sections of society who have suffered injustice and untouchability for ages now. It is not that untouchability is over… it still exists in villages of Uttar Pradesh… well, in most of the states. I’ve been to villages and you still have tolas in the villages of UP and Bihar where people still suffer the humiliation that you may read in newspaper stories. So in order to bring them into the mainstream, it is important to have reservation. But at the same time, there are a few steps to be taken.

Firstly, those people who have got the benefit of reservation once, or a person who has now become economically well-off, should not be given any sort of reservation. This is because the benefit needs to go to many others rather than the sons and daughters of people who have already availed this benefit.

Secondly, just reservation will not solve the problem. There more than 15 crore people coming under the scheduled caste category and there are, on an average, two lakh government jobs all across the country, including State and Central job pools. So even if we use this tool of two lakh jobs generated every year, by when will we finally solve the issue for the 15 crore plus people who need this attention? It is mind-boggling.

There is only one real tool that can help bringing these under-privileged sections of the society in the mainstream… and that is not reservation but education.

If we improve the quality of education in government schools and bring it at par with the best private schools, I think in one generation we will be able to bring all these under-privileged sections of society at par with other sections. Then these people will themselves stand up and say that they do not want any reservation and they want to compete with others on an equal footing.

AP: All great sounding words and ideas. But the effort to achieve this stage has been going on for decades now…

AK: No, no effort has been going on… reservation has become politics today. It is only politics that is played with the issue of reservation. Reservation is only being used for nourishing vote-banks. If all these political parties are actually interested in bringing these sections at par with the rest of the society, why don’t they improve education? There is absolutely no improvement in education. They are only talking of reservation of SC/ST or reservation of OBCs or reservation Muslims or reservation of this and reservation of that… what I’m trying to say is that till such time as all these societies come in the mainstream through education, till such time reservation is required. This is what the dream of the founding fathers was… they too thought that in ten years we will be able to bring the underprivileged into the mainstream… and so reservation was meant only for ten years! But subsequently they kept on amending the constitution because good education was never provided to the entire country.

AP: What do you think of the current education policies that include passing and letting every student get up to secondary level?

AK: I don’t think it is such a brilliant idea.

AP: You were also in college once. Could you have even imagined that you’d be such a politically charged atmosphere some day?

AK: No… I was never interested in politics.

AP: So what was the catalyst that pulled you into politics?

AK: You know I got into politics slowly. I first got into the Right to Information issue and debate… then I got involved with the Jan Lokpal movement with Anna Hazare. It was then I saw how all these political parties cheated the people and their demands and I had no option but to enter politics.

AP: So political involvement during your college years was not the reason for entering politics. Do our colleges and all the political hullaballoo there actually prepare students to understand the truth about politics?

AK: No, they don’t and there is a serious problem with our colleges. They neither prepare a good citizen nor do they transform a student into a good human being. Political parties are playing politics with education. Distributing laptops, for instance, is nothing but playing politics with education.

AP: Coming back to the mainstream of politics. What will be your criteria for selecting the right AAP candidate in the constituencies?

AK: The criteria are clearly mentioned on our website. However, we are looking for candidates who are honest, who have done extensive social work for the society, and who are sensitive to the needs of the aam aadmi… and also who have some understanding of people’s problems and their solutions.

AP: Will Anna Hazare back you in your endeavours?

AK: I don’t know. It is for him to decide if he will support me or not. I don’t have an answer to that.

AP: The Education Post is a weekly paper that is read by thousands of students all over the country. What message do you have for them?

Arvind Kejriwal: All students who are based in Delhi… if you’re still not a voter go and register yourself. This is because in November, Delhi goes to the polls. This time you have a choice because earlier we were stuck with BJP and Congress. This time I expect not just your vote for the AAP, but I expect that you go out in your area, in your class, in your college… and campaign for the Aam Aadmi Party. This is the last chance to improve the country. At least in my lifetime I don’t see any more opportunities coming.

AP: Thank you for letting your thoughts get woven in an interview that will be read by a lot of students.

Arvind Passey
Published in ‘The Education Post’ dated 10 June 2013

“I say ninety percent of Indians are idiots. You people don’t have brains in your heads… it is so easy to take you for a ride,” said Justice Markandey Katju in December 2012. No, Justice Katju, only 10 percent of Indians are idiots, the rest are smart and corrupt.

Obviously, Katju doesn’t get up at 5.30 in the morning to drive from his house to some park for his morning walk. Had he done this he’d have seen what one feels like when one waits at the traffic inter-section for the light to turn green and 90 percent of Indians zip by as if there were no traffic lights visible anywhere. Some even slow down to peer at me, and probably mumble, ‘Idiot!’

So what I’m trying to say is that those of us who follow rules and live according to some sort of regulation, are actually idiots. The rest, in their self-assessment, are sane, smart, and superior in intelligence. But the truth is that they are allowing themselves to be tempted every moment… and are falling into the bottom-less gutter of corruption. In a recent interview, I asked Arvind Kejriwal if the aam aadmi really understands that jumping a traffic signal makes him just as corrupt as Raja and his scam of crores? So does he think the aam aadmi really understands the essentials of corruption? Arvind Kejriwal answered, and I quote: ‘Two things are there. Corruption is bad and no one wants corruption to be in our midst. So a person jumping red light also needs to be criticised… and if A Raja siphons off one lakh seventy-six crores that also needs to be criticised. This is because an aam aadmi jumping a traffic light does not give licence to A Raja to indulge in corruption. One person’s corruption does not justify another person’s corruption. Both sorts are bad.’

Let me add here that there are two ways corruption can and must be handled. One is the way of the law which should come down heavily on the celebrity scamsters as well as the anonymous breaker of laws. The other is in the hands of the common man…

Now read carefully… if the common man decides to take the straight path. That is, stops at the traffic signals, opts to stand in queues and not bribe his way to get some work done, stops littering the nation, refrains from taking official stuff for personal use… the list is actually endless, but it is a list that has actions that can very well be adopted. Now if the common man does this, do you think the babu or the neta or any other official will even dare to take a wrong step? I think it is time for the common man to stand up and declare, ‘This is my nation and I am not going to tolerate any nonsense. I am not going to allow you to be corrupt now.’

But, coming back to my theory on idiots and idiocy… well, the truth today is that if you’re one of those who stop at traffic signals, never misuse official stationery, stand in queues to buy tickets or pay bills, and let others go stampeding for some unholy offer somewhere, then you’re the idiot that today. Mr Katju, the rest of India, including the ministers and bureaucrats, judges and policemen, businessmen and cricketing stars and all the others are the ones who go around calling themselves sane and smart and those who have the presence of mind to live a life of great comfort! In the India that the world sees today, it is the honest, the follower of rules and the disciplined who is in the vile clutches of idiocy. I am the idiot who stops at traffic lights even at 5:30 in the morning and watch helplessly as motorists, scooterists, motorcyclists, and even thelas and rickshaws sneak past me. These people have the temerity to glare at me and make signs asking me to move on. Yes, I feel like an idiot every morning!

This menace isn’t going away by just tweaking a few laws… who is going to do this anyway? Our legislators, if I understand correctly are already fed-up of even RTI and want to dilute it. They are not budging in to let the Lokpal bill come and create havoc. They are sitting there and smilingly saying, ‘Well, betting laws aren’t a responsibility of the Centre. It is a State prerogative!’ Our legislatures are busy bumping and dumping every sane law that could have been created to give the Nation some respite. No sir, just reading headlines in newspapers about some minister being chucked out or some cricketing official being asked to get lost isn’t going to bring about any tangible change that will rid us all of corruption. The change needs to come from the people.

The people.

Yes, it is the people who need to realise that small actions of theirs are what these big scamsters keep encouraging. They encourage and let you get away with a traffic light jumped or a few A4 sheets from the office supply because they know you are then weakened and cannot stand up to ask them, ‘Why are you so corrupt?’

Just imagine… an entire nation made submissive, an entire nation cuckolded to believe that they enjoy living the life of a petty thief! STOP being a petty thief. Only then can you summon up the courage to look into their corrupt glances and ask them to either shape up or fade away into oblivion!

Stop calling the rule-abiding citizen an idiot! And if this law-abiding citizen is indeed an idiot, I’d rather love to have a nation chock-full of idiots… and this sort of lawful idiocy is what will give us all the courage to tear off the clothes of false honour from our undeserving leaders and opinion-makers. But if you don’t change, then stop expecting a mere vote to change anything.

awazaapki.com_2013_06_11_Of Indians, idiots, and this idiocy called corruption

awazaapki.com_2013_06_11_Of Indians, idiots, and this idiocy called corruption_post

Arvind Passey
First published in awazaapki.com on 11 June 2013

Mothers Lovers and other strangers – Bhaichand Patel

There are many ways this review can be twisted and turned. I can easily say that despite the title of the book, it is an engrossing murder mystery where Inspector Waghle travels far north for the sake of unravelling the truth that was simply trying its best to get erased. But no, the book isn’t about Jagatram or where he came from… though his role does meander through the life of the main protagonist.

Is the book then trying to make an impactful social statement by taking us to Kaloni, a small village, and letting us peep into the way the happy and satisfied life of a poor potter terminates into leprosy, beggary, and a caring wife who finally removes ‘the gold bangles her father had given her, which she had not taken off since her wedding, she wrapped them in a piece of cloth and put them in the steel trunk. She made a bundle of some of her clothes and then, swiftly and silently, walked out the door.’ No the book isn’t about that loving potter who ‘always returns home with something for his children, and if sales were disappointing, he would forgo his midday meal and use the money to buy the gulab jamuns they loved; on better days he visited the toy seller or the cloth merchants.’

Do we go with the premise that because life in Bombay is graphically described, the author is surely trying to profile a big city through the eyes of a small boy who has run away from a small village in North India. Well, I did love the way Bhaichand Patel coaxes his prose to seem so Dickensian at times and then suddenly allows the E L James in him to jauntily describe the steamy relationships that people connected with films seem to be seeped in. No wonder then that we find Ravi, the protagonist of the book, is forever going upwards holding the hands of any opportunity that comes his way… and leaving past relationships behind, though not forgotten. After all, he is the one who has…

…enjoyed the luxuries and the comforts, and the lessons he learnt from Sharmaji had served him well. He had borne the old man’s caresses in return, but his fantasies always involved women. He was ready to move on.

But he the same boy who the reader commiserates with as he enters Bombay:

Soon the train was making its way through rows and rows of shanties. When it halted a minute for a signal to turn green, Ravi saw a young boy knee-deep in muck, poking a stick at a hairy black pig. The boy could not have been more than ten yards from the tracks. He stopped and looked up at the train. He seemed to be around Ravi’s age, but his face looked much older. Ravi caught his eye and felt the boy’s desolate and hopeless gaze sear right through him. He turned away. For a moment, he thought perhaps coming to Bombay had been a mistake. Then he saw the high-rises – first of Borivali, then Malad and Bandra – come up. This was more like the Bombay he had imagined.

Ravi is the one who the reader will love at any stage of this book… the small happy boy in Kaloni, the uncertain one when his friends move away because his father has leprosy, and the confused one when Radha, his mother leaves them:

Ravi stayed by the door for some time. Then he turned and saw his father sitting up on the bed.
‘Go back to sleep, my son,’ Mahesh said softly.
‘Where has Ma gone?’
‘Your mother is a whore,’ his father replied.

But no, this book isn’t about exploring the subliminal world of a child who has had a tumultuous past either. The back cover of the book informs us that this book is ‘a tale of a young man’s journey from poverty to privilege, and of memories of a lost childhood that continues to haunt even the most intrepid traveller.’ Well, to some extent, yes, the book is indeed more about one strange journey that insists on picking up and including every possible experience that a mortal might want to have… and no, before you say that everyone of us would analyse his life in a similar vein, no, this life is not like the life you could ever have. Not every reader would prefer having a whore for a mother, a homosexual as a teacher, a meeting with the past that turns into a dead body that needs to be dealt with… but I will still insist that the book isn’t just about a journey from one end to the other of a series of quaking events.

This book has all the above elements that I have mentioned and you, as a reader, are free to convert it into whichever avatar you prefer and you’ll love riffling through the pages… no, not in a hurry to finally throw the book for pulping, but because you’ll be eager to know what happens next. The human mind finds intrigue, drama, adventure, romance, and even social responsibility if it is controlled and directed by deception. And we all are fascinated by Ravi because ‘his life was just a series of deceptions.’

Meenu Talwar read a few pages from the book:

MLOS_read by Meenu Talwar

Book Details:

Title: Mothers, Lovers, & Other Strangers
Author: Bhaichand Patel
Publisher: Pan Books
Pages: 248
ISBN: 978-93-82616-0-92
Price: Rs 299/- (in 2013)

2013_06_17_The Education Post_Book Review_MLOS

Some photographs from the MLOS launch party…

The author… Bhaichand Patel

27 May… the launch day also happened to be Suhel Seth’s birthday. Specky with Suhel.

27 May… the launch day also happened to be Suhel Seth’s birthday. Specky with Suhel.

Arvind Passey
20 June 2013

Smart phones dumb people

Technology is not here with some secret agenda to transform life into a form of submission… it really isn’t going to be anything like the over-enthusiastic Hollywood script-writers keep throwing at us. The author feels that technology need not really be painted as some sort of a villain anywhere, any time.

…it is not impossible to design such a system and then further integrate it with your handheld devices such that you not only remain productive during the day, but hey, you don’t even have to think! I can only hope that this day does not come by; let us allow man further opportunities to exercise his gray matter.

Technology ‘can play a big role in eradicating corruption here’ writes Parthajeet Sarma… and this is just one of the conclusions he is attempting. The other being: Can we ‘manufacture a house’? So what is this book really talking about?

Well, the book is talking of technology the way it must be employed, the reasons it should be adopted and encouraged, and why it need not be feared. It also takes us into journeys into regulations, governance, and enforcement and all these too need to be harnessed to keep giving us viable solutions in areas of innovations, technology, entrepreneurship, and even corruption. Parthajeet has adopted a rather conversational style of expression that is chock full of incidents that every reader can identify with… and this is what makes him deserve a PAT.

Ah! But PAT to Partha isn’t the sort of pat we understand. He explains that ‘we must adapt ‘technology’ to suit our needs. What we see in such cases is a Process Alteration by Technology (PAT). Simply put, it is the application of the human intellect with modern technology in order to improve and alter business processes to bring in efficiencies, leading to overall development of industry and human beings.’

As a reader who is so accustomed to read fiction that doesn’t bother to even wake up the sleeping synapses sometimes, you will be surprised to find the going rather easy. Yes, despite all the talk of technology and a lot of figures thrown at you, you will soon start enjoying the way Partha puts you at ease with all things technical. No, this isn’t a book that will convert you into a technocrat… 164 pages are too less for that feat. But you will surely get converted into a person who would want to apply techno-solutions for all sorts of problems that you may come across. This is where the magic of the book lies. Let us take corruption as an issue that bothers you. The book tells us that ‘almost 60-70 percent of corruption cases happen in public dealings’ and that technology can play a major role is helping you clear this mess. The author writes:

Part of the reason why the western world does not see rampant shady public dealings at the individual level is because technology aided systems are in place.

The author also quotes Arvind Kejriwal as one who favours the use of technology for every sort of issue and admits that ‘I know technology can help in reducing corruption. But there is no political will to do tast. That’s the real problem. How do we tackle that?’

The book clearly and unambiguously states that ‘whoever sees the writing on the wall first and adapts will emerge glorious. Others will fade out. Innovation is no more a choice; it is the only thing which matters. Business houses being the basic framework of a nation’s wealth generation, the importance of innovation in India cannot be understated.’ It is obvious that all this goes with the premise that we also know:

What was ‘in’ in January is ‘so yesterday’ in February.

The author insists that it is adoption and the speed with which it is adapted and adopted that makes a real difference. Technology really needs to be a mandatory part of leadership anywhere, businesses of all hues, and must necessarily flow gently through even social causes. The book is actually all about using twenty-first century tools to address nineteenth century issues. Issues that are now older than you would care to admit can be solved when the right format of adaptive technology comes riding in like a knight to rescue the damsel in distress!

This is one book that I have kept in the ‘read again’ part of my library at home. 

Book Details:

Title: Smart Phones Dumb people
Author: Parthajeet Sarma
Publisher: Good Times Books Pvt. Ltd.
Pages: 164
ISBN: 938061956-1
Price: Rs 195/- (in 2013)

2013_06_17_The Education Post_Book Review_Smart Phones Dumb People

Arvind Passey
20 June 2013

If you don’t know what rustic philosophising really is, see this movie and know it. The movie takes you straight into the heart of metaphysics that ordinary people repeat and believe in… more so in the untutored villages of Punjab where they whole-heartedly mix and grind it all with slap-stick humour to offer you a chutney of a way of life that seems to work perfectly fine!

‘Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana’ is one movie that I wouldn’t want to miss watching… well, I watched it only yesterday, more than an year after it was released, and had a really enjoyable Saturday afternoon at home. The story doesn’t demand you to sit with a pen and paper jotting down complex manoeuvres to help you keep track of what is happening on the screen. It simply takes you flying out of London into the heart of a village in Punjab! Well, Omi, the hero of the movie is another one of those young guys who manage to reach London (and the movie just tells you how one night he drugs his grandfather to rob him of a few thousand rupees to fund his way into what he defines as his dreams) where he watches his dreams (and I still don’t know what they were, in the first place… but don’t bother… just stay with the action on the screen) sway in drunken horror as some ruffian Indian gangster there dispatches him back to get the fifty thousand Pounds that he now owes him.

The story thus actually begins and ends in the village where Omi suddenly appears, after years of disappearance, and gets accepted by his family. No questions asked… barring a few cynical remarks made by his uncle that his aunt slap-sticks effortlessly! The theme that the movie revolves around is some secret chicken recipe that the entire village loved once and which is now trapped in the silent senile labyrinthine synapses of Omi’s grandfather. The absence of the recipe has ensured that the family change the course of their business… and the once famed dhaba now lies in ruins! The movie is about how Omi stumbles upon that secret recipe and how he finally discovers his own version of it!

It was always the recipe that was at the centre of attention throughout the movie… and I loved the version that Omi finally gives it! No, I’m not going to share the final recipe that was as good, if not better, than the secret recipe that was discovered by him. But then what matters is the effortless way the movie meanders through life in a small village of Punjab and gives us some really hilarious moments of unadulterated mirth! The way the village folk dance during Lohri is actually the way they would do in real life… and it doesn’t look at all like some synthetic choreography pushed in by some over-ambitious choreographer!

The areas where the movie really shines is the straight-forward filming of a way of life that slips, stumbles, slides, gets muddied and greasy as life often would in a village. And if you’re the sort who’ll be looking for village belles going around with exposed midriffs and singing lilting numbers in rather sensuous ways, you’ll be surprised to find none of them here… in their place, we have Huma who drives the audience in a frenzy by her restrained projection of a lady doctor in the village and a school-time lover of Omi.

The movie has humour that is never really out-of-place, songs that somehow fitted what was going on in the movie, melodrama that always came with a bit of humour to bring you back to a smiling sanity, and philosophy that enters without any of the snootiness of a moral lecture! No pretensions to transform India into a land of whatever-you-want-to-convert-it-into… there is a love for the country shown by the simple fact that Omi stops even mentioning that he wants to return to London. Love comes without the usual laboured sentences that our lovers are asked to mouth… I mean, Huma just lunges to kiss the hero at point when I too thought was appropriate. The family never makes a drama of accepting a Bengali daughter-in-law or even accepting Omi despite his failures. You have a real story going on there on the screen and it does come with its own slap-stick brand of end-of-the-story twist where friends finally meet… and the audience is left with their own interpretation of what might have happened to the London gangsters who come back to the village in search for their ‘pounds’!

This is one movie where the entire cast adds to the light-hearted side of life in a village that it wants to project. The dialogues too include the funny bits… but more than that is the way they have been said by the actors and the way they have been filmed.

I’d say this movie finally tells us Indians that deep inside we are a funny nation with funny notions and funny potions (this is the nearest I am going to get to revealing the secret recipe of the grandfather) – and that we love to love and love to share and love to accept!

Film Details:

Initial release: May 18, 2012
Director: Sameer Sharma
Genre: Comedy
Cast: Kunal Kapoor, Huma Qureshi, Rajesh Sharma, Vipin Sharma, Vinod Nagpal, Dolly Ahluwalia
Producers: Anurag Kashyap, Ronnie Screwvala

2013_06_24_The Education Post_Film Review_LuvShuvTeyChickenKhurana

Arvind Passey
Published in ‘The Education Post’ dated 24 June 2013

My lawfully wedded husband – written by Madhulika Liddle

I was helplessly spell-bound and I’m sure, like the author, ‘I loved it all. I love travelling, so I was happy just’ reading and ‘drinking it all in.’ The stories in the collection took me into little nooks and corners of strange minds and unknown perceptions and I loved going there. From the unlawfully wedded husband to the co-traveller who could hear the bucket clanking – right there in front of him where nobody was standing! From the discreet Mr George to Varun and Deeksha to Verma ji… all characters who enter stories carrying their own surprise gifts for the reader… and why just praise mere mortals, even the lowly phone with the ability to capture sound bytes enters with its own mind and plan, almost like the howling waves of Tranquebar do… and you, as a reader, like and wait for the next twist in the next story!

Yes, the twists are what dominate the stories of Madhulika Liddle… they’re just there as if they could not have gone elsewhere… they belong to the story. The story would somehow not remain the story it is unless you actually transport that twist and weave it in the story. And even as you, as a reader, go along with the characters on a drive from Pondicherry to Tranquebar in one of the stories, you know the twist will be sprung at you somewhere at some turn. And so you calmly read the delicious and effortless prose that she writes…

The drive from Pondicherry to Tranquesbar is three hours, and you see Tamil Nadu in all its many colours. There are crowded towns, all charmless and cluttered; there are major temples – Chidambaram, for instance, which Taatoo told me we must stop at on our way back – and there’s the countryside. Green-yellow paddy fields, fringed with serrated rows of toddy-palms, their fan-leaves sticking up like old toothbrushes into the deep blue skies. Little roadside ponds…

No, I’m not here to tell you what the twists are or were, nor will analyse if the twists were correct nor get into the morality or immorality of them… I’m here to simply tell you that if ever your mind wishes to be excited and wants to move out to savour some wild moments like the lawfully wedded wife did, you’d agree with this:

My heart was pounding, but I was suddenly feeling deliciously wicked too. Adultery can give you an adrenalin rush.

‘Ah!’ you’ll say with a nod, ‘so I know where all the excitement and twists and the turns are emerging from.’ I will simply smile and tell you that each of the twelve stories in the collection follows a different path in your life and fill it with anticipation. The anticipation that will keep you on the edge of your chair until you reach the last sentence of the story!

Let me also admit here that I did not read all the stories in the collection at one go. Nor was I in any hurry to get over with and then reach out for another book. The first story that I read, and it wasn’t done in a chronological order, made me keep the book aside and let the cold wickedness in it settle down in my heart. For days I just thought of what happened… it’s a mere story, my mind said, but look at what happened. Look at what… well, it was then that I decided to let each of the stories come to me after a gap and, believe me that was the best thing to have happened. The charm of holding a book with stories that make the nerves tingle and send telegrams to other parts of the body doesn’t happen every time. Yes, the plan could’ve flopped if the other stories failed to keep up with the expectant tempo that the mind now sought – but it did not happen, not even once.

The stories in the collection ‘entertain, amuse – but always end with a twist in the tale that leaves a few goosebumps.’ So be prepared to emerge like the misspelt and untidy little note that Hourie showed in one of the stories… or like the moonlit cropland, grey and dim, each field with its own scarecrow from On the Night Train… the stories move along with deceptive simplicity and as you tell yourself that this one reminds you of what happened with one of your friends, it snaps back at you with the suddenness of an angered bitch taking her peaceful nap in the middle of your path! Well, it is then that you begin to go deep into your own life to ferret out incidents that may have turns and twists… this is the sort of effect the stories have. I’m afraid this book might just be responsible to give us all an entire generation of writers who write on the fiendishly clever way that the macabre in life hides behind poetic dawns and sensuous dusks! Each story confidently says: I preserve. I nurture. I elevate. Yes, every spine-chilling moment does, in the end, elevate a reader to some place where he becomes more perceptive!

Is there anything else that I want the reader of this review to know? Yes, I want to tell you not to trust these stories one bit. They will reach out for your insides with their cold and clammy intent and not weaken their hold until you listen to what they want to say. And then you too will conclude, like one of the characters in one of the stories, finally said:

See what I mean? Trust is a dicey thing. You can’t be too careful about whom to trust.

Here is an audio clip where Madhulika Liddle reads one of the stories in the collection:

Number 63 – A short story written by Madhulika Liddle – MP3

Book Details:

Title: My lawfully wedded husband and other stories
Author: Madhulika Liddle
Publisher: Westland Ltd
Pages: 215
ISBN: 978-93-81626-87-0
Price: Rs 250/- (in 2013)

2013_06_24_The Education Post_Book Review_Liddle

Arvind Passey
Published in ‘The Education Post’ dated 24 June 2013

Snowden on Poke T-shirt of the day

Where’s Edward Snowden?

President Morales says Snowden was not on his plane. Some journalists feel he is nowhere to be found in the Transit area of Moscow airport too. And no, I’m not trying to investigate and find out where he is. This is because I just happened to throw in the drift bottle in WeChat and of all the people in the world it was Snowden who caught it and sent me an invite to chat.

‘Where are you?’ I punched in with all the speed I could manage. After all, this is one fact that anyone would want to know.

‘I’m in the middle of nowhere but wanted to ask you a few questions about Ram Rajya,’ he asked.

Ram Rajya? I knew he was probably talking about India but surely not as it exists in 2013. However, to make sure, I went out on our seventh floor balcony and tried to see if we still qualified to be called a Ram Rajya. All I saw was a maid in some distant apartment throw out household rubbish deliberately aimed to land in another balcony below theirs but a little to the side.

Ah! I thought, this is probably what corporates call targeted sabotage! Nothing wrong with that… after all these are well-revered business tactics. And anyway, Chanakya would’ve approved of them. So what if he is a few thousand years ahead of Ram.

I looked further and saw a teenager transfer a blob of gum from his mouth to the top centre of the rear windshield of an Audi in the parking below. He then picked up a small but probably sharp stone and begin to scratch a large heart with a slightly awkward arrow piercing it. Hmmm… I thought about this again and concluded that this too qualified us as Ram Rajya.

‘But this is vandalism,’ you might protest.

No, this isn’t vandalism. This is an art form that needs to be encouraged because without it we would all feel our freedom is curbed. Look at Singapore and ask them how they miss spitting out chewing gum on the streets! Or how much they miss ‘spontaneous art’ that you are conveniently calling vandalism! Come on, this guy is just expressing his spontaneity and is probably converting that bland Audi into a veritable art-piece!

I went back to the PC and wrote to Snowden that India has Ram Rajya. He was probably visibly excited as his next question was even more perplexing. He asked: ‘I hope the Ram Rajya in India is ideal in all aspects?’

I wrote back, ‘Of course. Ask any of our Netas here and they will say things are no less than ideal. You’re a bit late now, but had you asked Bahuguna how the security for pilgrims was in Badrinath and Kedarnath, he’d have used this word ten times. We know how vital this word is, Edward. We do sometimes confuse ideal with idle… but then Ram Rajya embraces everyone.’

Snowden immediately wrote: ‘No, I was reading that in Ram Rajya everyone is an ideal brother, an ideal husband, an ideal friend, an ideal son, an ideal enemy… you get what I mean? I’m just trying to say that I want to be an ideal citizen in an ideal country.’

I took in a deep breath and wrote, ‘But India has refused to give you asylum.’

‘I know,’ he wrote back, ‘but I read a tweet that asked me to go to Bangladesh and then walk to India across the border and get a passport, voter ID, ration card, Aadhar card without any problems. Is this the ideal way to become an Indian?’

I knew then that Snowden was serious about entering India. So I sent him another tweet that Richa Bhardwaj ?@Riczb had tweeted a while back: ‘Dear Edward ?#Snowden, the best way to get political asylum in India is to come via a boat, kill few people and say I belong to Pakistan.’

Snowden was by now excited, for he wrote, ‘Ah! So I can enter from the East as well as the West.’

‘Even the North and the South are equally auspicious,’ I wrote, ‘you just might relish the trek into India with the Chinese soldiers who do their shopping in our country and then go back to their own massive hell. Or you can have an idyllic time with the LTTE learning some guerrilla discipline and then hop into our country and become a CSK fan!’

‘I’m excited now. Your country is so like a movie.’

‘Yes, we do have Hollywood directors here wooing camels in Rajasthan.’

Snowden then came tumbling back to his obsession with Ram Rajya and asked, ‘I also want to know if people accept righteousness in India and if they are also true to their word.’

‘It is Ram Rajya here,’ I replied, ‘You should know that we recite ‘Shantihi’ thrice because it tells us of multiple paths converging into one. Rama is a singularity and when we merge into him we become one. This is Ram Rajya.’

I didn’t tell him, of course, that we followed this spiritual law in everything. Look around you and you’ll see money and prosperity converging into one. As we move up in power or position, we become veterans in the practice of this technique of convergence. The ‘one’ gets bigger and heftier… look at the cut-outs of Jayalalitha, if you don’t believe me.

I also wrote to Snowden, ‘Forgot to tell you that you’re right in saying that righteousness is vital for Ram Rajya. Just try and locate that video where you see a few politicians asserting their right to brand stranded Uttarakhand pilgrims as their own. You’ll know that we have given righteousness a very modern meaning that makes it so easy to understand. I mean, you’d find it so difficult to understand a word like ‘maryada purshottam’, wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes, I would. Thank you so much for proving that India is the real Ram Rajya where I need to be. You see, when I see something, I say something. This is what Obama and his cronies don’t seem to be appreciating.’ Even WikiLeaks ?@wikileaks tweeted that the Obama admin “is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the  constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.” So India should just work out for me.’

Before I could type out that India is ideal for Snowden, he sent me another message that read: ‘All I want is that I remain free and able to publish information that serves the public interest.’

Now this is something that we excel in. The public is always interested in watching and hearing and reading about the Rambos, Dumbos, and the Scambos. It’s all in public interest, baba. Theek hai?

So I wrote back, ‘You’ll be in safe hands here. We don’t ever seem to have lasting political offences here. I mean, it is ok if you’re sent to explore Tihar for a few months in your lifetime. Look at Kalmadi and Kanimozhi and even Raja… we’re all, in fact, waiting for them to write their first fiction based on their stay there.’

‘Yes, I remember your Nehru did it… but that was ages back.’

‘You’re so perceptive, Edward!’

‘So it is Ram Rajya in India?’

‘Yes,’ I wrote, ‘it is Ram Rajya in India.’

#

This article can also be read on www.awazaapki.com here

awazaapki.com_2013_07_03_Edward Snowden wants to be in Ram Rajya_01

awazaapki.com_2013_07_03_Edward Snowden wants to be in Ram Rajya_02

Arvind Passey
Published in Awazaapki.com on 03 July 2013

It is quite possible to go backward one step at a time. Yes, one step at a time until we go tumbling into the chronicles that future generations will read and say with a sigh: ‘This was one nation that couldn’t make it to the future.’

‘What does the word backward mean to you,’ I asked Specky, my wife.

She answered without waiting for me to even blink, ‘Twenty seven percent.’ She then went on to tell me that this was no small figure. It simply meant that of the almost 6000 students who will opt for engineering diplomas from Delhi this year, there will be an overwhelming 1800 who will be from the OBC.

‘That’s quite a large number,’ I murmured, ‘and if we take the engineering degree seats on a pan-India basis and then add all the other professional and non-professional courses, the number will be enough to astound any social scientist.’

This happens every year.

For the uninitiated, let me say here that the First Backward Classes Commission was set up by a presidential order on 29 January 1953 under the chairmanship of Kaka Kalelkar. There was, at that time, a list prepared that had 2,399 backward castes or communities for the entire country and of which 837 had been classified as the ‘most backward’. I dug deeper and found that one of the recommendations then was a reservation of 70 per cent seats in all technical and professional institutions for qualified students of backward classes. I looked apprehensively at the newspaper lying beside me because the front page was desperately flapping pictures of the pot-holed misery of Mumbai and Delhi. Somewhere inside the paper someone was talking about the incompetence that has infiltrated almost every profession.

I said aloud, to no one in particular, ‘Are we becoming incompetent because of reservations in education and jobs?’

I heard Specky say, ‘No. Reservations were probably conceptualised with the aim of making everyone come to a level playing field. But something went seriously wrong in the years that followed.’

I told her that Kaka Kalelkar wanted women too to be treated as a class as ‘backward’… and so it was probably sometime in the fifties that the cry for reservation for women was born. The reason given was the same… centuries of repression can be washed away only by reservations!

‘But repression isn’t half as bad as reservation,’ I said, looking towards my wife. She simply stared at me with an indulgent smile. She said, ‘You probably need some rest now.’ But I told her that we would not have had the wonderful stories of Eklavya if the Guru had simply admitted him to his school of martial arts. His story of learning from a distance is so inspiring! ‘In fact, I won’t be surprised if some researcher suddenly announces that the distance education courses were actually started by Eklavya,’ I said, ‘though it wouldn’t have been easy trying to device a distance learning set of instructions for expertise in using the bow and arrow!’

We laughed.

After the laughter had suitably faded out, I began, ‘And why just Eklavya… we couldn’t possibly have had a Gandhi if repression was absent. There wouldn’t have been a Martin Luther King if there were no repressed people around. So repression isn’t half as bad as reservation is.’

Specky simply said, ‘I know what you’re trying to get at. Are you trying to say that repression gives humanity thinkers and fighters and reservations give us only incompetent professionals?’

‘That’s an interesting thought,’ I said with a smile and added, ‘I don’t mean reservations are bad so long as they really go to benefit the ones who need it.’ The SC/ST need it because they have been not just repressed but the shunned ones. They have never been a part of the mainstream and reaching out to them through reservations was quite fine. ‘The decline of this mission,’ I said, ‘began when a few others started calling themselves backward and created the OBC.’

‘I have a lot of friends who are Yadavs or Rajputs or Chaudharys and they aren’t repressed by any definition. They’re just out to milk the system dry,’ I said, ‘I know a Lakhera who is an HR consultant and I have on my FB list of friends people who have Jaiswal or Rawat as the surname and who seem to be doing rather well.’

Yes, the world of OBCs is full of intelligent people who have more than most and are enjoying life to the hilt. There are other surnames like Maurya, Lodhi, Gurjar, Quraishi, and Goswami who are surely a part of this gang who just want easy seats in professional colleges and want to go up the ladder of promotions in jobs without wanting to sweat as much as the others.

Specky asked, ‘So OBCs as category must not exist?’

‘No, I don’t mean that at all. All I am trying to say is that I hardly ever see people like Gwala, Badhai, Tarkhan, Bharbhooja, Bazigar, Bhatiara, Mallah, Dhobi, Gadaria, Kasai, Khatik, Kumhar, Luhar, Mochi, Nai, Hajjam, Rangrez, and Sangtarash coming forward to get rid of their backwardness!’ The truth is that these classes of people are the real professionals in our country and we need to reach out to them.

Let’s take a Kumhar (potter), a Mochi (cobbler), and a Nai (barber) from this list and see what they really want and what the world really wants from them. These people have a subliminal inclination towards the finer nuances of the art that their fore-fathers had adopted. They need to be encouraged to take up the right vocational course and learn the contemporary definitions of their art. For instance, a Nai would understand hair-styling and have a love for it. I am not saying that others cannot take up hair-styling… they can and they do and have converted it into an art form. All I’m trying to say is that we must allow the inherent stylist in a Nai to survive instinctively and not emerge out of some inane college course to end up as a half-hearted clerk in a dingy second floor office!

Specky heard me out and then said, ‘So you mean we need to have targeted reservations? A reservation policy where you get benefit only for a course that your name suggests? Wouldn’t that be rather cruel and heartless?’

I told her that according to TOI on 31 August 2010, ‘even after 17 years, at most 7% of seats have been filled by OBCs, regardless of their 27% reservation.’ This simply means that reservations for the ‘Other Backward Classes’ are taking the nation backward. Even those who opt for post-schooling education tend to rise to a level that just frustrates and breaks their will. This policy effectively catapults a Nai, for instance, who has generations of a genetic love for hair-styling, into a tumultuous world of mediocrity from where he is able to neither come back nor take resolute steps forward! We are, in fact, slowly and surely destroying the professional matrix that has existed for ages.

‘This discussion seems to be getting serious,’ I said suddenly.

Specky simply told me that the discussion was moving ahead rudderless and that it was almost getting incoherent. I told her then that it was in December 1980 that B P Mandal submitted a report that concluded that the population of OBCs which includes both Hindus and non-Hindus, was around 52 per cent of the total population. The National Sample Survey found this figure too hard to believe and decided that the correct figure was 32%.

‘Are you aware that the reservation for OBCs is only for the non-creamy layer?’ I asked, and then added, ‘which means, in today’s context, that anyone with a total family income of 6 lakhs and above is not eligible for any reservation.’

The law also states that ‘children of doctors, engineers, chartered accountants, actors, consultants, media professionals, writers, bureaucrats, defence officers of colonel and equivalent rank or higher, high court and Supreme Court judges, all central and state government Class A and B officials should be excluded.’ It goes on to clarify that even the children of MPs and MLAs must be excluded.

Specky said, ‘I know all this. All that worries me though is how the actual beneficiaries never seem to get anything for themselves.’

I read out to her what I found on the Sangh Parivar website: ‘OBCs are well off to take care of themselves like general category. I know that there are poor among so called OBCs and if somebody can do a survey than I wont be surprised to hear that there are almost same number poor in so called General Category. I fail to understand on what basis Ambumani Ramdas, PC Chidambaram, Lalu and Mulayam Yadav call themselves backwards? Something really wrong is going on here. This mindless reservation solely on basis of so called upper and lower caste has to stop. This is stupidity and mediocracy which we are propagating here.’ It is obvious that the policy of reservations of the OBCs is not as innocent as it appears to be. Another article on the internet says that ‘they (OBCs) were actually peasants or working class that didn’t enjoy high social status. They shouldn’t be confused with the dalits or ati-shudras or outcastes. Even OBCs consider themselves much ahead of dalits in social front, at certain places OBCs are known to have suppressed dalits more than other castes did. Though there is an extent of educational backwardness among them, but unlike SC/STs who were prohibited or discouraged for amassing wealth or living in the mainstream, the ancestral businesses and assets like land seem to be serving OBC generations well in many cases.’

Specky insisted that she was still not clear about what I was trying to tell her. She said, ‘All I know is that reservations don’t seem to be having the sort of beneficial effect that they were supposed to have.’

Well, we have had hundreds of years of subjugation of the masses. These repressed classes were intentionally kept backward and higher learning as well as a good life was distanced from them. Reservation for them is almost a necessity where the world surrounding them is dipped in corruption. I said, ‘But I find that reservation for the OBCs has already been hijacked by those who don’t need it at all, which is why I don’t favour it.’

I was silent for a while before I said, ‘We are not going to make it to the future if this goes on. We’re going backward.’

Arvind Passey
12 July 2013

Featured image: Source

Article published in awazaapki.com. Can be read here too.

awazaapki.com_2013_07_12_Are we going backward_01.

awazaapki.com_2013_07_12_Are we going backward_02

We cannot do anything about events that happened hundreds of years back, created history but never got to be in the heritage list. But events that happen in our lifetime and then allowed to sink into the endless and dark cauldron of history without anyone even trying to make them relive as a heritage happens only when the government behaves like a doctor who is in the habit of sending his patients to the mortuary more than anything else.

I am talking of ‘The Telegram’ that will breathe its last today. I was at the telegram office yesterday and was surprised to see a queue there. Yes, this crowd was not the sort of crowd this office had seen for ages and so the people manning the seats inside were hassled but happy. The people coming in were all sending their ‘last’ or final telegram and I got talking to a few of them. Their responses were as varied as they could be…

‘I am here to show my grandson what a telegraph office looks like.’

‘We were just passing through and thought of joining the queue that is going to be there just another time.’

‘I am twenty-one and I have never sent nor received a telegram. So I came to experience the feeling.’

‘Nostalgia. I am here to relive once more the thrill of browsing through the list of standard phrases and decide which one to choose for this last telegram. I hope they have created one specially for this occasion.’

I wanted to tell all these excited folks that they were actually there to be a part of the final journey of a system that had connected the nation just a few years back. Is the telephone responsible for this day? Or is it the internet that finally made it call it a day? Did the SMSes, the MMSes, the emails, the tweets, and the blogs have anything to do with making us say RIP to The telegram today?

Well, it is a little of all these factors that managed to make our bureaucrats and the government decide to do away with this wonderful messenger that went about at all hours to send good tidings as well as news that brought tears to the eyes. No, the morse code machine days were over now… and there were no teleprinters too anywhere in the office… all we could see were computers with their web-based messaging system software and printers that we all know of so well.

I asked one of the staff inside how he was taking in this demise and he shook his head sadly and said, ‘They didn’t really need to kill this relationship like this.’ By the way, I was also told that the Indian army was still using the telegraph services and the office in Eastern Courts in New Delhi was still receiving about a hundred telegrams every day!

No, he didn’t say anything after that but it made me think about the callous and insensitive way our think-tank functions… and they’re not just callous, they are probably short-sighted as well. Why couldn’t they have let the telegraph offices live? Why couldn’t they have converted them all into a healthy tourist attraction that is functional as well? Why couldn’t they have re-introduced the teleprinters  and the dit-dat-da machines of the past? If someone from the think-tank is reading this post, please think of re-inventing and re-structuring the telegram houses of India. Let them be places of cursory and insightful interest for the tourist… let the old systems too be there in functional order and working along with the new computer-based technology… these offices be a part of the Indian heritage and not just be relegated to the dust and grime of the past. Just imagine the intriguing sound of the morse machines mingling with the buzz of excited tourists and the boundary of the office merging seamlessly into a coffee house!

Our people really don’t ever thing off the beaten track, do they? I wish they did. I wish the telegram remained alive. I wish we weren’t so busy throwing everything into the ignited fires of history. I wish we cared to keep heritage live and kicking!

2013_07_15_The Education Post_The telegram – History or heritage

Arvind Passey
Written on 14 July 2013
Published in ‘The Education Post’ dated 15 July 2013

The 5 rupee funda!

Let me start by saying that we tend to become involved participants only when we pay for something… and I don’t mean the bribes some of us tend to pay to get a file in motion in any office. The word ‘free’ simply ends up giving licence to squander everything. That is one reason why I never prefer to enter Stores where they say they will give me something for ‘free’!

Look at the state of education today. The government has, over a period of years, made ‘free’ an umbilical right for most students and have, at best, achieved only a literacy level that is little beyond the FREEdom to hop from one class to another without mastering anything. They have effectively transformed from a nation that took pride in doing whatever they were doing to a nation that has stopped working and begun looking at jobs and positions that they feel, belongs to anyone with their perceived notion of education.

I’d say, ‘Let them all pay for everything.’

You’d say, ‘They’re poor. There are also the poorest of the poor and they all need to be educated.’

I’d say, ‘Making education free and making it free for students to go from class to class without imbibing anything are two different matters!’

Ah! So you understand now what I am getting at, don’t you? Let education be free for those who make genuine efforts to get educated. Don’t make a mockery of education by throwing mid-day meals at them to improve statistics at your end. Put an end to this mockery of uplifting the repressed classes and lending a hand to the poor… just tell them that education will not attract any charges so long as they make effort to get educated and pass examinations. Be sincere in the evaluation systems that you have. Be firm with your policies. Let the teachers and evaluators function without being compelled to churn out false data to be available for your hollow speeches.

But let me come back to BJP deciding to charge Rs 5 for listening to Modi. As I was saying, when people will actually pay to hear Modi, they would not like to listen to hollow promises or party promos. They will want the time spent standing there to listen to this political leader to be worth what he finally says. He is the one who will have to give credence to his words. He is the one who will need to push his party into converting his ideas of a great nation into a reality. Or the people will walk out never to come back again. They wouldn’t come back even if he announced that he will regale them with the great comedy circus of inter-party jokes. Paying to listen is a good habit.

In fact, the people must stop going to listen to leaders if there is no fee. Let all political parties charge a fee or even increase the listening fee to more than just a token 5 rupees. There are some inherent advantages attached to such a system. We will know which speaker has the ability to attract a crowd that pays to listen… or pays to boo, if you want me to make you look at the sordid side too. The other advantages will include a rush amongst political parties to convert their leaders into dynamic speakers, to recruit people who are not the sorts who will rise to be silent PMs later, and we will have great meaningful debates on the stage than just comical announcements of schemes and projects that will be allowed to go limp or fade away.

This fee of 5 rupees to listen to Modi has the power to convert us into a nation of leaders to dazzle the world with the truth of conviction. We don’t need jokers and performers on the stage anymore. We need the debating neta to come out of TV studios and into the open… and really and truly face the nation!

Arvind Passey
Article written on 21 July 2013

Article published in awazaapki.com on 22 July 2013:

awazaapki.com_2013_07_22_Will I pay to listen to Modi_01

awazaapki.com_2013_07_22_Will I pay to listen to Modi_02

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Well, the title I have chosen for this review tells me a lot about what is there in this thriller. There are people putting up an act, there are those to whom these words are like a catalyst, and yet again there are times when the same words become a grim pointer to some ground reality that needs proactive action. Strangely, all the interpretations that I have mentioned go well with the way things shape up in this book… and I must admit that I was equally tempted to use ‘the way of the assassin’ as the title.

The story line isn’t complicated… until the time the author decides to bring in twists that kept me awake for a large part of the night to go on reading this one. There is one Irshad Dilawar who is an underworld don and hiding in Pakistan. Obviously, the ISI is woven in the story matrix as are other assassins and the RAW and IB from India. A covert deep penetrating mission is planned and Shatrujeet Nath, the writer, decides to call it Project Abhimanyu. Now it becomes easy for a discerning reader to conclude that the writer must surely have planned a book where the protagonists enter a war zone easily but emerging from it is what is going to be difficult. If you are reading this book and reach this conclusion, I’d say, you’re absolutely right… you see, thrillers cannot be thrillers unless there are unsurpassable obstacles scattered all around you.

The story has a defined time-line that begins on May 07 and ends on August 13. So a reader doesn’t go groping into timelines and the complexities of the past to keep his sanity while reading a thriller. The book is simply as clinical as an assassin.

The book is also as clinical as a spy, I must add. Colonel Madan has some chilling words for spies as he pitches the concept of Unit Kilo to Imtiaz and specifies that anyone willing to join the unit is ‘about to embrace a life that is not that of a soldier or a commando. It is the way of the assassin.’ We then get a bird’s eye view of the sort of life these members of the extremely secret force must understand:

“Unit Kilo is and will always be a lonely and thankless place. We will never march down Rajpath on Republic Day and be seen on TV, There will be no public honour for whatever you may achieve, no Param Veer Chakras or Ashok Chakras or Kirti Chakras, no matter how great your bravery was. No one will know what you did for the country, and you will tell no one. The only reward you will get for a job well done is the opportunity to do more.”

On the other side of the world of intrigue are the real assassins, the mercenaries, and this set of people too have the beliefs of Zawawi who ‘strongly believed that a bunch of average soldiers who knew each other were infinitely superior to a crack team of fighters who had been thrown together for the first time.’ He knows that there must be a joy in killing… artless or otherwise… and that he works ‘for the joy that comes with the job. These scalps… they are a part of that joy.’ Assassins are not necessarily involved with any covert counter-espionage operations. Their role meanders through greed and politics and these are what flow invisibly but like a river in spate that gobbles up lives without their even knowing or understanding what was happening. Even true spies are left wondering… Shamsheer and Imtiaz are the two Unit Kilo agents from India who wonder what Rafiq, the third in their party in this particular mission, was up to…

‘So question number one: why was Rafiq sent to spy on us? Two: why is the colonel enacting such a big charade? Three: what is happening here that we both know nothing about?’

This book isn’t all about blood and gore as there is more than just this that will make a true thriller. Yes, people get killed in its pages, but the real heart-beat accelerators are the people sitting in high offices plotting moves as if they were playing nothing but a game of chess. And then again, it isn’t just this sort of callous plotting that converts an ordinary thriller into a pulsating one… it is the realisation of truth in small bits and pieces that people at the operational level snatch by adding up what has happened, that sends the pulse zipping and zooming deep into dizzying heights.

The book takes us all deep into the life of a spy, the way of the assassin, the way political manoeuvring interacts with professional life, and the truth behind a façade of truth! There is martial philosophising in the pages just as there is murderous intent. There are secrets tumbling out to solve issues just as there are secrets that are arranged back meticulously to solve issues… and this is where the intrigue begins to gnaw until you decide to keep awake for yet more time to read on. The book has simple words that convert everything into a chilling experience. The reader is propelled into a position where he starts loving the gun-shots and yet wants them to become a messiah!

“We shook hands with someone who has taken innocent Indian lives,” the major shook his head obstinately.

The colonel considered Imtiaz for a moment. “Yes, but in the process we are now in a position to save countless Indian lives…”

The book is a fascinating example of a thriller well written… but I have one question to ask readers, analysts, and writers. Should thrillers have characters explaining to you why some action was initiated? Shouldn’t the reader be allowed that one additional thrill of concluding the real secret on his own? Yes, there will surely be a lot of interpretations, but then that is what a thrilling moment is all about. I believe that a thriller should have the ability to transform itself into an enigma that will be discussed for ages and to find that as soon as a consensus is about to be reached, another interpretation crops up to bring the enigma back to life! Not that this is something that will lessen the joy of reading a thriller where the reader is painstakingly explained all the nuances of decision-making that went on in the pages…

Book Details:

Title: The Karachi Deception
Author: Shatrujeet Nath
Publisher: Grey Oak in association with Westland Ltd
ISBN: 978-93-82618-35-5
Pages: 251
Price: Rs 225/- (in 2013)

The Karachi Deception – a thriller written by Shatrujeet Nath

My prized copy of the book!

The book was received as part of Reviewers Programme on The Tales Pensieve.

Arvind Passey

Blog: www.passey.info
Email: arvindpassey@gmail.com
Twitter: @arvindpassey

22 July 2013

The review was published in BLUZOG too:

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Felt nice to get a response from the author…

2013_07_22_The Karachi Deception_Shatrujeet writes

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Free Fall – The Journey Home… by Rohini Singh

Is this a fable or a parable? Doesn’t matter, really. What matters is that the book takes you deep sea diving into life rejuvenating snippets that are actually giant-sized chunks of philosophy simplified for any reader. The inside blurb of the book does mention that the book is ‘about friendship, learning to trust, letting go, and discovering the power of surrender’ but it goes much beyond this. Well, for me it did go much beyond mere words on paper that seem impressive enough to memorise and spout when wise spouting is required… and it was because I actually met the author.

Rohini Singh is a charming grey-haired person who comes across as a person who can simplify any complexity that you present to her. So obviously, talking to a problem solver is always rather exhilarating and I’ll be talking about her concepts and her ideas in a separate article later. Let me just say that Rohini is a ‘spiritual mentor, life coach and corporate facilitator and leads retreats designed to empower, transform and connect with the true self.’ No wonder then that she has given us all a book where Shona, a parakeet, discovers the little nuggets of truth that life is all about… and shares them slowly as understands each of them. After all, understanding ‘Me-ness versus We-ness’ or ‘choosing connectedness over separation’ to get ‘get your happiness back’ cannot happen in a single moment!

Life happens slowly… and understanding the finer nuances also happens slowly. Life reveals its truths to all of us in layers and it is up to us to see them for what they are. The book takes us through incidents that Shona faces and looks for explanations… she is probably fortunate that she has Zorro as her friend who helps her decipher these seemingly complex issues of life and death.

‘The animal is dead,’ he explained when she had finished recounting what had unnerved her, ‘That is why he was lying so still.’

‘Dead?’ Shona echoed. ‘Dead?’

‘Yes,’ Zorro looked at her kindly. ‘Death is a part of life. It’s something that will happen to all of us at some time or other.’

‘Will it happen to me too?’ Shona looked stunned, ‘Will I too be like that animal, still and unmoving and pecked at by other birds?’

She couldn’t imagine not being part of this garden; she didn’t want to think that the perfect life she had right now could end. And then an even more frightening thought struck her.

‘Will it happen to you too?’ she looked horrified as she stared at Zorro.

‘Free fall – the journey home’ is a story that emphasises that ‘whatever happens, happens for you, not to you or against you even if it may seem that way sometimes’ and the author employs a conversational mode of writing to communicate her answers to seemingly obfuscating issues. The book has chapters that begin with a few lines from the pages that follow… lines that are the essence of the sort of question that the chapter would go on to explain. The illustrations by Parnita Purohit are all done with intuitive gentleness and never let you stray far from what the author is actually attempting to clarify.

‘Intuition is in-tuition. Wisdom is from within. It doesn’t depend on logic or thinking, but arises from a deep space of knowingness.’

‘Hmm, like a radar?’ here it was again, Shona thought to herself.

‘Yes, it’s like that. It’s a feeling of rightness about things that are or are going to be. It’s often direction about what to do. It’s a true gift, and we have it.’

Yes, the book is all about directions for the reader. Directions that we are all aware of but always want someone to come and tell us about. These directions aren’t something that Rohini has thought of for the first time in the history of mankind… they have existed earlier too. So many writers and speakers and mentors and gurus are saying somewhat similar things day in and day out… but only some communicate in a language that can be understood by the common man. Rohini tell it all in a language that even a school-going kid will understand and probably retain. This is quite important, really. We can all listen to or read complex philosophies and wake up the next morning without retaining any of it. This never happens with what Rohini’s book strive to tell us about. Look at the way she talks about ‘connectedness’ and how this is often confused with loneliness… all through a fallen leaf that hops in as a brilliant metaphor!

‘That’s a sad end, that’s for sure,’ Shona said kindly, ‘You must be lonely lying here all by yourself?’

‘Lonely?’ leaf said in her raspy voice. Shona thought she even heard her chuckle. ‘That’s not something I’ve ever felt. I am a part of everything and everything is a part of me…’

The leaf then goes on to say…

‘We are all connected. I am made of all the things that nurtured me; the sun, the earth, the rain, the moon, all the elements and you too, Bird. You too are a part of me. Did you ask if I was lonely?’

I’m sure the ‘perch-pectives’ of a parakeet did not come to me as a mere coincidence. I agree with Rohini what she strives to tell us through Shona and Zorro:

‘What a coincidence!’ she repeated, ‘I can’t believe it.’

‘There are no random occurrences, Shona,’ Zorro said, a trace of seriousness in his voice now, ‘no coincidences. It is all meant to be.’

This is one book that isn’t just another book that you buy, read, and add to your collection at home. The book is on my table and I just open any page on any day and read to find a solution when I need one. And, by the way, before I write the final words in this review, the cover is one of the best I have ever come across. The pages and the printing makes reading a pleasure and so much easier… the binding is fine too… and the book that I have is specially signed by Rohini which makes me treasure it all the more!

This isn’t just a parable. The book is all about what you already know but have forgotten that you know it all. The book helps you go within and retrieve the wonderful thoughts that lie dormant in some remote corner of your being.

Book Details:

Title: free Fall – The journey home
Author: Rohini Singh
Publisher: Hay House India
ISBN: 978-93-81431-31-3
Pages: 192
Price: Rs 299/- (in 2013)

My prized autographed book by Rohini Singh

Arvind Passey

Blog: www.passey.info
Email: arvindpassey@gmail.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/arvindpassey 

22 July 2013

The review was also published in BLUZOG:

2013_07_04_Review on BLUZOG_Free Fall & Karachi Deception

2013_07_04_Review on BLUZOG_Perchpectives of an Alexandrine parakeet

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The worker’s daughter that I noticed was while I was on my seventh floor balcony watching the construction workers on a Sunday. Some were working while others were enjoying the winter sun, the boys were playing… but this family had a target to complete.

I observed this family of four… father, mother, son and daughter. I saw the daughter pick up one concrete tile after another and bring it back to her parents. She was concerned. She was involved. She was helping her parents. Her brother, I noticed, was at the other end playing with a ball.

No I did not ask myself, ‘Why are 5 mio girls selectively aborted annually? Why is their mortality rate 75% higher? Why are there 107,000 dowry deaths a year in our country?’ I just smiled and filmed the scene for all to see. And I promised to blog about it… to say girls don’t deserve gendercide.

Watch my video before you go on to read the rest of this post:

I had shot this film a few months back and thought I would shoot some more clips to convert it into a longer film. And then I saw the TEDx presentation done by Evan Grae Davis and I said to myself, ‘You can’t possibly delay the film any more now. You got to do it now. You got to do it today!’

I remember having discussed this issue with Specky, my wife, a few weeks back. ‘Why is the male-female ratio so skewed in our country?’ I began, and then added, ‘When will we learn that even boys need to marry a girl… and that girls are no longer confined to a few clichéd jobs. They are everywhere.’

Specky said, ‘Girls are no longer just satin ribbons, pink frilly frocks, dainty shoes, and delicate tutus. They have long since adopted the role of decision-maker even in our country. And yet…’

And a couple of days back, we browsed through the list of videos at the FTideaCaravan website and stumbled upon the absolutely clinical and emotionally mature presentation that Evan Grae Davis had made. He talked about the 3 deadliest words in the world – ‘It’s a girl’ – and then went on to blast the reckless gendercide that is so rampant in this part of the world, particularly India and China.

According to him, gendercide originates from a ‘strong cultural preference for sons’ and has led to some really shocking statistics:

1. 5 mio girls selectively aborted annually
2. Mortality rate for the girl child is as high as 75%
3. 107,000 dowry deaths still occur in parts of the country

He wasn’t just lambasting India. He also mentioned that China too had its ‘one-child’ policy that was more draconian in the way it was implemented and the statistics there too alarming:

1. 37 mio more boys than girls
2. 1 mio more boys are born compared to female births
3. Sex trafficking is rampant in the country because of this skewed ratio
4. 70,000 child-bride kidnappings reported

We were shocked to learn that more than 200 mio women missing which statistically is more than all the deaths added in both the World Wars we’ve had.

Specky said, ‘This is shocking!’

I showed her the video that I had made and said, ‘This video isn’t really talking of the harm that gendercide is responsible for. It is aiming to impress that the girl child is actually a boon.’

‘I think your video does communicate the thought rather beautifully.’

The Evan Grae Davis presentation that had spurred us into action is also a video that each of us must watch… and I have it right here for you:

I must finally also add that all that matters to an individual is how he or she was able to identify a thorn hurting humanity and what steps he or she took to generate action that would rid the world of that thorn. It is vital to not just identify a problem, but making sure that it is communicated to everyone is equally important as it is mass awareness and mass action that will make the problem leave us in peace.

The construction worker’s daughter_01

The construction worker’s daughter_02

The construction worker’s daughter_03

The construction worker’s daughter_04

This post on indiblogger.in is dedicated to Franklin Templeton Investments who partnered the TEDxGateway Mumbai in December 2012.
and
This post is written as a part of All that Matters contest at BlogAdda.com in association with INK Live 2013.

Arvind Passey
31 July 2013

Note:
Evan Grae Davis responded to the tweet that I sent him. He saw the video, read the post, favourites and RT-ed my tweet and then replied with these words: 
Evan Grae Davis ?@EvanGrae tweeted: “@arvindpassey thank you for your thoughtful and beautifully written blog. We need more voices like yours!”

Evan Grae Davis replies

Well… now we’re friends on twitter!

Evan Grae Davis_now friends on twitter

Article published in Awazaapki.com Read it HERE

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There is a real time comedy circus going on in our country. Starting from Beni Prasad to DigVijay Singh to Akhilesh Yadav to Mayawati to Mamta Bannerji to K Chandrasekhara Rao, we have an unending list of big and small leaders who open their mouth and make us laugh.

We were listening to the news when I started laughing. Specky looked at me and said, ‘Shh… this is important. Let me listen to the news.’ The after just a moment, she turned and asked, ‘But what was it that made you laugh?’

‘The news,’ I said, ‘today’s comedy menu has Nitesh Rane asking Gujaratis to leave Mumbai and the TRS chief shouting – Leave Telangana!- at the top of his voice. Don’t the two of them make you laugh?’

‘Well, that’s true. They have made statements that tell me they aren’t serious about development of the country.’

‘Oh! No, you’ve got it all wrong,’ I explained, ‘they are actually doing us all a favour.’

Then I went on to tell her that the falling rupee, the schizophrenic stock market, and the tumbling economy of the nation were making us all too serious and these politicians have finally decided to bring a bit of humour back in our dull and stressful lives.

‘Look at it this way,’ I said, ‘People slog the entire day to earn enough only to buy their daily bread and nothing more. All the dreams, the wishes, and the plans, cling to the quake-prone recesses of the mind… and then should the news come in to add the extra dimension of more targeted blasts to shatter the common man completely?’

‘No,’ Specky defended the common man, ‘The news has no right to add to our disturbance.’

So I told her that the news is nothing more than what the newsmakers want it to be. And our newsmakers were fully aware of the precarious situation of the minds of the people and so…

Well, at this point I recounted to her the story of the demon who was wreaking havoc on a city when the city council decided to send him one person every day to be eaten. The demon liked the idea and one person was queued up each day as the sacrificial meal for him. This went on until one thoughtful person thought of a brilliant idea…

‘But forget that brilliant idea,’ I said, ‘the point I’m trying to make is that the Indian politician is perceptive enough to know that all this stress is sooner or later going to bring the people together and convert the masses into some sort of a gargantuan demon for their kin. So they have decided to let one of them come up every once in a while to prevent the common man to transform into this demon.’ My theory of the common man turning into a demon did not impress Specky until I added, ‘The politicians are actually trying to instil some humour into our lives.’

‘Sick humour,’ she said, ‘Nitesh Rane is simply telling us all how irresponsible these people in powerful positions can be.’

For the uninitiated, let me share the tweet that did it all. ANI ?@ANI_news tweets: ‘If Gujaratis trust Narendra Modi & feel more development in Gujarat then they should return to Gujarat-Nitesh Rane’ Barkha Dutt called Nitesh Rane’s tweets ‘abusive, unacceptable comments against Gujaratis in Mumbai.’ Vir Sanghvi ?@virsanghvi tweeted immediately: ‘Dear Nitesh Rane, my ‘Gujju’ family was in Mumbai long before your father was born and we will be there long after Daddy and u are forgotten.’ Someone even went on to remark that if DNA reports of Nitesh Rane and Digvijay Singh were compared it would be a 100% Tunch match!

The Telangana TRS chief also wants all Andhra-ites to leave their State and let the vacant positions in Government jobs benefit the Telangana-ites… if this trend catches on, we’ll have everyone leaving some state or the other. The Gorkhas don’t want anyone else in their state, the Marathi manus will be left making their own language movies in Mumbai, the Bengalis will spend generations singing some sort of sangeet that they don’t want to share, and we all know what is going to happen in Talangana and Andhra… the other states are no less.

Specky listened to me and then said, ‘But this is a serious matter.’

‘Don’t take them so seriously,’ I said, ‘they are clowning around and the latest ones are simply Rane and that leader from Telangana. Warming up to this comedy act are Akhilesh and his Yadav gang. There’ll soon be others you haven’t even heard of.’

Then I told her that all this was a part of a much bigger plot. ‘All this comedy,’ I said, ‘is to keep us humoured so we don’t start another common-man gang… because if that happens there will be total anarchy. Look at what is happening in Egypt. The social media getting people together and making the masses rise as one is all crap.’ I then told her that all this comic posturing will lead to mass exodus from every state… and where will everyone go?

‘Guess,’ I prompted, ‘just hazard a guess.’

‘No idea,’ she said.

‘Delhi,’ I said, ‘Delhi is the city where we’ll find the entire population of India moving in with bag and baggage.’ Where else can we all go, after all? The capital has a large heart and keeps creating colonies with a state orientation… and when the massive exodus happens, Sheila Dixit will simply finger the government at the Centre to expand the NCR.

I asked Specky, ‘Now did you get the overall picture?’ Seeing her confused, I told her that the NCR would, with one swift and deliberate legislation annex the entire country into the NCR. ‘So everyone will belong to the NCR… and we’ll all be Delhi-ites then,’ I said with a flourish of my hands, ‘this is the capital plan of our politicians. So until that happens, they will really need to increase their comic tempo to a crescendo that makes an exodus possible.’

Specky was uncertain about my comedy-influenced-exodus theory and she said, ‘I’m still not sure…’

I gave her a couple of extra cushions, surfed through the channels to the where they were talking about Rane, and said, ‘Enjoy the comedy.’

Arvind Passey
03 August 2013

Article published in Awazaapki.com. Read it here.

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Technology may not be what you teach your student, but technology is certainly what you use when you teach. The bits and the bytes, the internet, the social media, and all things that travel at speeds that the mind cannot even think of, are as real as the bunch of students that you see in a classroom. This bunch of students can be aware or dis-enchanted, eager or plain lazy, or there just because society wants them to be there. Whatever be the reason for someone becoming a student, once they are there they do begin to form an opinion about teachers.

We are going to talk about how technology, social media, students, and teachers are metaphorically connected. I am going to pull out example tweets and then elaborate on how the connection has evolved. But before we do that, let me say that most teachers feel they are ‘great’. Yes, I remember a few of my school teachers say that they were the best. The same happened in college… and was repeated when I did some professional courses even when I was past 50. Even as a fifty year old student I heard my teachers blow their trumpet and assume that they were the greatest! This happens in every school, every college, every university… and so I was prompted to list out things that made a teacher feel he was great.

The ‘greatness’ list that I created, includes:

My students score well in tests.
My students do well in every sort of assessment.
My students are always smiling when I enter the classroom.
My students never feel unsafe or shaky in the subject I teach.
My students are always eager to discuss the finer nuances of what I teach.
My students are simply perfect in their spellings or grammar or expression.
My students get the completely involved teacher in me.
My students love me because I love them.
My students are not just students, but like my own children.

The list could be endless because every teacher does analyse himself in ways that seem to suit him or her. My next step was to explore the social media and I short-listed seven tweets or micro-blogs as some call them, and decided to talk about different characteristics in a teacher and how they may have evolved these past few years with such a high proliferation and penetration of the internet.

One

@iGetTheMemo tweeted:
Teacher: You failed your exam.
Student: You failed to teach me.

So we know that it is not smiles in a classroom that will matter if a student fails to score. But then it isn’t even a matter of scores or marks obtained. What matters is how much and how well a student has been taught. Teaching, by the way, is not just what is there in text-books but knowing how to apply all this knowledge in a profession as well as in life. It is possible that even a student who has passed may say the same thing to a teacher. So a teacher has indeed ‘failed to teach’ if he has not impregnated knowledge with values.

Two

@SchoolprobIems tweeted:
Teacher: Learn to do things on your own.
Teacher: I forgot to bring in my book, can someone go to the staffroom and bring it for me?
Me: lol.

Quite obviously a teacher at any stage of a student’s education needs to lead by example. One who is afraid to get up on the stage and address a gathering cannot possibly teach public speaking, so to say. What I am trying to say is that preaching values is not the effective way to inculcate them… you just need to do your things right and students will do what you want them to do. This is the silent command method that is actually on a perceptive level.

Three

@KattWilliams tweeted:
Teacher: “You’re here to learn.” Student: “No, we’re here because it’s the law.”

Isn’t this what the government seems to be trying to do? They have actually transformed school into a free travel or commute from one class to another until a student emerges out of it with a certificate in his hands that he cannot even read properly! The truth is that besides making it mandatory for kids to become students, a teacher needs to make the school or college years a journey full of discovery. Well, even college students roam the streets today with degrees in their hands and without having the ability to even draft a leave application properly. So teachers must not be content that all the seats in the college or school are filled… they need to convert all of them into learners!

Four

@Fact tweeted:
It is illegal for a teacher to keep the class after the bell as punishment.

This is another aspect that needs to be understood carefully by a teacher. You can surely make a student stay after class… but NOT as a punishment. Convert it into a learning experience, an incentive, a journey that they volunteer to embark on… I believe that the first move needs to come from the teacher. It is they who must stop being the bully in the classroom. You cannot possibly threaten and then make them learn their lesson. No, you need not get on your knees as well… all you got to do is to convert even extra hours of teaching into something that they start looking forward to.

Five

@rmbyrne tweeted:
Useful for any teacher using a Tab for the 1st time. 10 Great Apps for a Teacher’s New Tablet.

No, I don’t intend to give you a list of the most appropriate apps for your Tab or iPad here. The point I am trying to make is that an early adoption of technology brings you at a level where some your students already might be at. If you don’t embrace technology, you force it to embarrass you! I have seen even university teachers remain at a distance from technology. Well, you need to remember that even teachers must be students for life. Learn your technology well and you could actually be on your way to becoming a ‘great’ teacher!

Six

@philbaroni tweeted:
A teacher is never a giver of truth. He is a guide, a pointer to the truth that each student must find for himself – Bruce Lee

Many teachers are naïve enough to assume that knowledge is whatever they know and are teaching. Well, knowledge and wisdom are far more spread out than you or I can ever imagine them to be. Learning does not stop when you join as a teacher… in fact this learning has actually just begun. You have to learn more and learn faster because your students are bringing with them their knowledge in all the different formats now available. They can access the wisdom that all the learned teachers have to offer, at the click of a key on the keyboard! For you, as a teacher, the present will become a shattering dis-orientation if you aren’t keeping in step with all the technological innovations that time is flinging at you.

Seven

@LeadAndLearn tweeted:
When the quality and competence of the teacher improves so does the student achievement.

So you are prone to talk about the way your students have fared in their exams… right? It is possible if you have a batch of self-propelled learners in your batch… but where this feat is repeated year after year, the reason will always be teachers who are continually learning and keeping up with the academic chromosomes of the world! Would you have faith in a doctor who prescribes you a medicine that even you know has been over-taken and unseated by newer molecules? The answer will lead you to the need of a constant booster dose of not just your knowledge of your subject but also about all related aspects and also the way communication has changed!

The seven factors

Well, the seven factors that I have mentioned are those that teachers teaching at any level can think about and consider adopting to get moving into the haloed arena of being really respected by the students. There is no great teacher, if you ask me. Every person, in fact, is a teacher and a learner at the same time. Remember, Bill gates said: ‘Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.’ So as a teacher you really cannot afford to let complacency born because of success, come at you to tear you apart. For you as a teacher, the only way ahead is to keep moving and keep learning. You are a great teacher so long as you remain a great student!

Arvind Passey
Article written on 13 June 2013
Published in ‘The Education Post’ compendium ‘Indian Institutes’

Circulation of ‘Indian Institutes’ magazine:

1. 169 centres of Career launcher across India
2. 72 centres of Vidyamandir Classes across India
3. 250 centres of other coaching Institutes for CAT, IIT-JEE prep across India
4. 1500 Management Institutes across India
5. 2000 Engineering Institutes across India
6. 50 Corporates (HR)
7. 225 copies to individuals, faculty, consultants & independent writers
8. Availability at leading book stores in Metros through distribution agency
9. 150 copies to advertising agencies

All have been sent multiple copies.

Hearing Raghu rai speak on photography was a profound experience!

Raghu Rai selecting my picture to be rewarded was an honour…

A few days back, I had the opportunity to get really close to the God of Indian photography, RAGHU RAI… talk to him, listen to his ideas on this art form and also attend a Nikonology session conducted by the Nikon Technical Team. It was an experience that was unbeatable. This blogger meet was called by Nikon and I must mention at the outset that they also had a ‘tweet-a-picture’ contest while we were listening to all the wonderful tips on picture-taking… and one of the pictures that I had clicked and tweeted that day was chosen by none other than the great man himself and… I’ll tell you later in this post what that prize was!

What did Raghu Rai have to say about the evolution from analogue to digital photography… and what does he think of photography itself? What are his secrets that he shared with us that day? Read on for all this and more…

Yes, we talked… I asked and he answered!

Raghu Rai:

‘Speed of the film and everything else has changed so drastically that I feel I am reborn with this new technology. Photography for me is not only my profession but this is my Dharma. Photography is like a prayer… and it takes me close to my God.

Photography is my life and is the life around me and is the whole world around me… and this is nothing but a part of gad. So I feel much closer to this kind of godliness when I am clicking pictures. Bhagwan toh nahin aane wale hain… na Christ, na Allah, na Ram… par unke darshan toh zaroor milne wale hain… toh unke darshan ke liye tasveer keechna becomes very precious. So for me, photography is my dharma. When someone asks me if I can meditate, I say NO… but I also tell them that when I take pictures, there are moments of fulfilment and all this is through photography… and that’s why it becomes very precious to me to remain a photographer.

Film was very cumbersome and very difficult… and every film had its own speed and limitations… but in digital technology you can change things like colour balance right away… ISO settings… and so many other vital aspects can be taken care of with speed… and look, even in this space where we are sitting and it is so dark, you can take near perfect photographs… thanks to digital technology.

Q. Photography is so accessible now… will this dilute the art-form? 

Raghu Rai:

This is what I call ‘churning… and churning must happen… on a larger scale too. A little while back we were discussing mobile cameras and you can be sitting with your friends or relatives someplace and you suddenly say: ‘Let me take a picture with my mobile phone’ and then you click and admit: ‘My God! This picture is so nice… why shouldn’t I now have a DSLR?’ So the process of exercising your mind in order to take better pictures begins right then… and that’s a very good thing. Mobile cameras help us move towards better photography. Therefore, churning must happen in order to process more and more possibilities… 

Raghu Rai_the expressive master!

Q. What is your thought process during street photography? What are you looking for and what goes on inside the mind of Raghu Rai?

Raghu Rai:

The thought process has to be STOPPED. The mind has to be at ease otherwise this heavyweight champion sitting inside you keeps programming you for this and for that… actually creativity happens beyond that thought process. First of all it is a moment of first-hand experiencing something for yourself. You take a picture simultaneously and then later on you can tell yourself and show yourself your own experience. That moment comes alive before you… and you say: ‘Wow! This is what I have captured.’ So in any creative photography… whether it is landscapes or street photography or portraits… the magic of instinctive response is very precious and creativity lives beyond those planned ideas.

Thanks to Nikon… I came back understanding photography better…

Q. Tell us about the photography gear that you use.

Raghu Rai:

Of course I use my digital cameras… D800, D7200… and I have lots of equipment but I have come to a point where I use only two or three zoom lenses because each time I am shooting I decide the area of my assignment or subject and decide on the particular focal length which can capture the space that I have in mind… and I try to minimise the use of my equipment so that I am not wasting time in choosing my equipment or lens. But when I go on big shoots for a long time then I do carry a whole lot of equipment but while shooting, each day will have a limited and relevant set of equipment. I try to keep them to a minimum. The range of zoom lenses available, especially with Nikon that I have used all my life, is amazing.

And maybe with just one zoom lens you can cover a lot… a 28-300 zoom lens is good enough for wide angle, indoor pictures and you can also shoot wildlife with it. So you tend to have a lot of fun with digital technology.

Q. Is it important to diverse into all genres of photography? Why do you love street photography and portraits so much?

Raghu Rai:

Street photography takes me closer to life itself you know and taking pictures of people is precious to me as I am one of them and in the process I discover myself and where I stand in this space called existence.

Any genre is good enough. You can fool around with multiple ones if you want to, but it is better to move and explore in one direction and when you think you have done enough you can try different themes, different subjects, and different kinds of photography… so a lot depends on how versatile and how grounded you are. It is not as simple to jump from here to there and feel that you can take good pictures in all situations and types. It takes a lifetime to really understand and achieve something meaningful.

Nikonology needs the right ambience!

Nikonology

This is one session that I wish each of us who has even the smallest interest in photography, must attend. These guys at Nikon keep having workshops and they can be attended by anyone who has a good camera and a healthy interest in photography. The session at this blogger meet was taken by their team of experts: Rohit Dhawan, Abhishek Singh, Ashwini Joshi, Gaurav Mishra, Vinay Kumar, Sumat Kuduvalli, Anindo Basu, Yusuf, and Amit.

Loved every moment of this session as we were taken from a historical perspective of photography itself to the way Nikon helped in shaping the past and the present of photography. The best part was that Nikonology, as they put it, was an experience… the story a journey with Nikon. We went on a rapid ride to explore the structure of a camera and the structure of good picture-taking… we explored the way various settings can affect the outcome, the way various types of cameras can give a different output, if correctly and judiciously used. 

The Nikon team made sure that every complexity was simplified… with illustrations and examples

#ThroughTheLens & the metaphysics of photography

The hashtag for the meet was #ThroughTheLens and besides the pictures that I kept tweeting, I also did tweet the essence of photography in short twitter poems! Some of these short 140 character poems were linked to the picture that was tweeted.

*
I love to see the world fly high
A world that smiles without a sigh!
*
Silhouettes give a shot the thought
And makes a pic much more sought!
*
Unusual angles to aim to shoot
Always makes me happily hoot!
*
Pictures to simplify & set you free
Is more than just an aim for me!
*
Reflections to make u stop & think
And smile & wonder, or just blink!
*
Colours #ThroughTheLens to make
You smile & give life a break!
*
The web threads with the droplets fine
On macro shots I love to dine!
*
Social interactions in pics are true
What I say is nothing new!
*
Do cameras matter?
Yes.
Does instinct matter?
Yes.
So when you look
#ThroughTheLens
Focus
And be intense!
*
I love to search the past & shoot
This is heritage to the root!
*
Some games in pics will remain
So don’t treat such sights with disdain!
*
#ThroughTheLens I’ll see to find
The child in my wife’s mind!
*
For candid moments I will wait
One second here or there is late!
*
Forms of norms from here to there
See & shoot & then share!
*
Natural wonders for all to see
I’d click & share for free!
*
I’d love to show the good & bad
To complete the picture, my dear lad!
*
A nation and its joys
With all the jugadoo ploys!
*
The real and the unreal as one
I love to have creative fun!
*
Truth is what I’d love to sight
I’m sure it has great photo might!
*
So now I must insist that photography isn’t just an art-form, it is probably a catalyst too that managed to bring out the poet in me.

And finally, to reveal what I won that day… I won a warm hug from Raghu Rai and then he gifted me his book of photographs: ‘Delhi: Contrasts and Confluences’. This book is a photo-journey on Delhi that Raghu Rai shot and has a rather interesting introduction by William Dalrymple.

2013_11_18_Nikonology_The Education Post (Large)

A few more pictures from the meet…

Loved hearing what Hiroshi Takashina of Nikon had to say…

Raghu Rai’s book that I won…

Nikon_the stand up comedian

My Nikon D5100 capture Deepika’s expression and her tattoo rather well.

Arvind Passey
05 December 2013

The three don’t actually go together. Politicians never confront other politicians with full vigour and we all know it is more like a big show of confrontational drama like the one the forces of India and Pakistan enact at Wagah Border. And we also know how heartfelt the will to serve the nation is in a mere politician.

The best time to observe political confrontation is during election time… attend the rallies, listen to speeches, note the slogans that evolve and sometimes degenerate, read the stuff in newspaper inserts and ads and click what they out up as hoardings. All these together can easily be stitched into some sort of a lesson in bitching. Thus ‘feku’, ‘shehzada’, and ‘NaMo’ flow through a surging flood of liar, jhoota, pagal, pappu, baba, aunty, didi, amma, maunmohan and hundreds of rhymed nonsense that gets to form the witty literature during election time in India.

‘So if confrontation and politics don’t go together, what does?’ asked Specky.

I said, ‘That’s simple. Politics and convenience go together.’

Specky was obviously confused, so I told her that almost all the conveniences in Delhi are now in the safe hands of large hoardings of one or the other political party. So if Congress is exhorting the public to ‘badte raho’ from one, we find the BJP showing the mug-shots of their leaders from behind piles of onions in a large picture and talking of inflation and price rises. The irony is that the local sweeper simply comes and places his ‘jhadu’ in front of both these hoardings and some wisecrack remarks, ‘Jhadu pher diya political creativity par!’ (Political creativity is swept aside!)

‘So you see it is always conveniences that link politicians,’ I said, summing up my doctrine. Specky nodded and laughed, ‘The truth is that these conveniences stink!’

‘That’s probably because the jhadu is still kept outside and not being used properly.’

Well, it is obviously now up to the masses, the public, and the electorate to see if they want the conveniences of politics or conveniences swept clean. And no, this post isn’t promoting any particular party or ideology… it is simply trying to define the nexus that has suddenly formed between the words I have used so far.

Incidentally, both ‘conveniences’ and ‘confrontations’ have ‘con’ ruling their entire existence. It is time, I presume, to let the cons be swept aside to allow the pros to enter and finally do the nation some good.

You must have also noticed that though the title of the article had ‘the will to serve the nation’ hogging more than fifty percent of space, it hardly features anywhere in the body text. The reason is again obvious… and don’t you dare ask me the reason for this last sentence.

2013_11_18_Politics, confrontation, and the will to serve the nation_The Education Post

Arvind Passey
05 December 2013

Published in ‘The Education Post’ dated 18 November 2013